Running my shell script instead of Ubuntu's built-in file

Question

I have my shell script ready to be run.

But my problem is when I need user to run my shell script and not the Ubuntu's built-in file

For example, I want user to run my passwd shell script and not Ubuntu's passwd at /usr/bin/passwd

I have written alias on the .bashrc which look like this

alias passwd='./passwd'

My question is how do I make user to run my passwd instead of Ubuntu's passwd? How do I disable the real passwd file?

Off-topic question, how do I override sudo?
Because my shell script contains sudo which will print out the required password at first run.

Answer 1

You have to provide the name for the alias, like alias passwd='/home/Unknown/bin/passwd'. This is often done by default for some commands like ls or grep, like alias ls='ls --color=auto'. Some background in here.

To run the original command and not the alias, you might use command passwd stuff-to-do.

That being said, substituting security-related binaries is a dumb idea.

EDIT: .bashrc is not read in non-interactive shell by default, that is when running a script, a shell used by the script does not read the .bashrc file. You might use a function for that in .bashrc and then export it, like:

passwd(){
    /home/Unknown/bin/passwd
}
export -f passwd

I did not test that with passwd, but it should work.

Some of the details come from this question's answers.

Answer 2

As said in previous answers, best practice is to not name your script with the same name of an already existing system file/command.

If you really have to call it like that, then perhaps at least add the .sh to diversify a bit, e.g. call you script 'passwd.sh' (in general, also a best practice for shell scripts) so you minimize chances of confusion.

As for your question, I would suggest to create a bin directory under your home directory or perhaps (if you have rights) place it in /usr/local/bin and then amend the user PATH variable so that the scripts in the chosen location are found/accessible, for example:

$ cd; mkdir bin
$ export PATH="$HOME/bin:/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

Note that the PATH variable may already contain those locations, best check beforehand via:

$ echo $PATH