Browser based installs Discuss/help

[Socraties]

Has anyone ever tried to do a complete browser based install for linux rpm packages.

What I am looking for is some examples or tutorials that might lead me in the direction that I need to go.

I need to be able to deploy applications through a web broswer, the browser will have to talk to the shell, or more appropriately put the code will execute from apache and talk to the shell via shell_exec() and exec() commands inside of php. Those will then kick off the actual .sh files that need to be kicked off and then return a message back to apache that I can read to display status, errors, and success messages.

If anyone has done this or seen this it would be great to know. Even better if anyone can point me in the direction that I am wanting to go I would apperciate it.

Also is there any kind of security risk (as the systems won't be accessible outside of a private network) or problems that might be thought of. Is there any kind of speed or language compatibilitiy issues as well. To know this would be great.

Thanks in advance.