Cpanel api2 Zoneedit Error - cpanel

Question

I am attempting to use the cpanel api2 to modify the zone file for one of the cpanel accounts. Below is the code I'm executing.
$xmlapi = new xmlapi($ip);
$xmlapi->set_host("192.168.1.1");
$xmlapi->set_port("2087");
$xmlapi->set_protocol('https');
$xmlapi->password_auth($cpusername,$cpuserpwd);
$xmlapi->hash_auth("root",$root_hash);
#print_r ($xmlapi);
$xmlapi->set_output("json");
$xmlapi->set_debug(1);
$xmlapi->api2_query($cpaccount, "ZoneEdit", "add_zone_record" , array($domain, $subdomain, $type, $ipaddr, $ttl));
The commented code authenticates using the system hash. The other using password authentication. I get the same error on both authentication methods.
When I set the user id and account to root, I get an internal 500 error:
Internal Server Error 500
Could not setuid to root at /usr/local/cpanel/Whostmgr/XMLUI/cPanel.pm line 82.
If I change the userid and the account that the zone file is for, I get the message:
{
"cpanelresult":{
"apiversion":2,
"func":"add_zone_record",
"data":[{
"result":{
"status":0,
"statusmsg":"You do not have permission to read the zone for : "
}
}],
"event":{
"result":1
},
"module":"ZoneEdit"
}
}
I'm stumped on what do next. When I login at the command line as one of the non-root accounts, I can su to root once I enter the root password.
Any assistance would be appreciated.

Answer 1

To close this out. With no solution in site, ended up writing a php script to generate the zone file from scratch with appropriate SOA serial number management, and scheduling a cron job to run as root to replace the zone file and reload it.
Put another way, never got the Cpanel interface to work so write it from scratch.
And if anyone is curious about the final generalized implementation, it is the smartDNS feature on my website and described in the blog.