How do I run a 'sudo' command inside a script?

Question

To do a patch manually I must type this command

sudo ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh 09_delete_old_data_p.sql  

There is a space just before the 09:

sudo ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh [space] 09_delete_old_data_p.sql

How can I run this inside a script?

There are also several other commands but this one is giving trouble.

Answer 1

It is rarely a good idea to have sudo inside scripts. Instead, remove the sudo from the script and run the script itself with sudo:

sudo myscript.sh

That way, all commands within the script will be run with root privileges and you only need to give the password once when launching the script. If you need a particular command within the script to be run without sudo privileges, you can run it as a regular user with (thanks Lie Ryan):

sudo -u username command 

The space is irrelevant, it should not affect anything, there is always a space between a command and its arguments.

Answer 2

You could possibly modify the sudoers file.

Run sudo visudo.

Add an entry for your username and the script that you would like to run without being asked for a password.

username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /path/to/script

Answer 3

You could try something like:

echo "PASSWORD" | sudo -S ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh 09_delete_old_data_p.sql

This is not the most secure thing to do since you are writing a sudoer password in plain text. To make it a little more secure you can create a variable and read the sudo password into the variable and then you could execute the command as:

echo $PASSWORD | sudo -S ./playback_delete_data_patch.sh 09_delete_old_data_p.sql

Also, if you do not mind all your commands being executed as root you can simple execute your script using sudo, as previously suggested.

sudo ./myscript

Answer 4

This answer is similar to terdon's answer. As I would also suggest running the main script with sudo so you can run the commands without asking the user for any password.

However, in case you want to run some of the commands not as the root user or a specific system user, but as the actual user who ran the command with sudo, you can check for the $SUDO_USER variable to figure out the original user.

This is an example script of how you could achieve that:

#!/bin/bash

# ref: https://askubuntu.com/a/30157/8698
if ! [ $(id -u) = 0 ]; then
   echo "The script need to be run as root." >&2
   exit 1
fi

if [ $SUDO_USER ]; then
    real_user=$SUDO_USER
else
    real_user=$(whoami)
fi

# Commands that you don't want run with root would be invoked
# with: sudo -u $real_user
# So they will be ran as the user who invoked the sudo command
# Keep in mind, if the user is using a root shell (they're logged in as root),
# then $real_user is actually root
# sudo -u $real_user non-root-command

# Commands that need to be ran with root would be invoked without sudo
# root-command

Answer 5

#!/bin/bash
# this declares that current user is a sudoer
sudo tee /etc/sudoers.d/$USER <<END
END

# write the content of your script here
sudo npm install hexo-cli -g
mkdir Untitled
sudo apt-get install python

# then to remove the sudo access from the current user
sudo /bin/rm /etc/sudoers.d/$USER
sudo -k

Answer 6

You could try to add the user who runs the script to the sudoers file:

#give permissions to the file
sudo chmod 700 /etc/sudoers.d/useradm

sudo visudo /etc/sudoers.d/useradm

#add the following text, changing "user" but your desired user
user ALL=(ALL)NOPASSWD:ALL

#return the right permissions to the file
sudo chmod 440 /etc/sudoers.d/useradm

Answer 7

I hope by now you have your answer, but because I was trying to achieve a similar goal and was brought here in my search to find nothing of use, I'd like to share how what worked for me!

I was trying to wake up my laptop at certain dates and times, so I have a while statement that includes this:

echo | sudo VAR=$PASSWORD -S rtcwake -m no -lt \$\(week[$i]\)

Basically, you have to have VAR= and then your [$PASSWORD], followed by the -S option and then your [COMMAND] in order to run the script(s) without it asking for a password (because you've already given it).

Answer 8

try use the command "expect" on the terminal.

expect -c "
spawn telnet $var
expect \"*Username:*\"
send \"$USERNAME\r\"
expect \"*Password:*\"
send \"$PASSWORD\r\"
expect \"*#*\"
sleep 5
send \"$CMD\r\"
expect \"*#*\"
send \"end\r\"
expect \"*#*\"
send \"exit\r\"
interact
"

It's like this. He automate any commands in just one line.

will gonna do sudo or anything you want. Hope I help you. :)