ambiguous redirect when running a script in /root/bin with sudo as normal user

chadwick · 05-31-2007, 10:59 AM

I have a simple script /root/bin/mupdt
which contains the following:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

#This script will print the date plus a comment
#to the file called $MAINT_FILE.
   
echo "" >> $MAINT_FILE
echo "[$(date +%d)$(date +%b)$(date +%y) $(date +%H:%M:%S)]  $1" >> $MAINT_FILE

I have the following environment variable declared:

Code:

me@mycomputer:~$ env | grep MAINT_FILE
MAINT_FILE=/root/maintenance/maintenance.log

I've tried to run this script from my non-root account by typing:

Code:

me@mycomputer:~$ sudo /root/bin/mupdt "this is a test"

but I get the error:

Code:

/root/bin/mupdt: line 6: $MAINT_FILE: ambiguous redirect
/root/bin/mupdt: line 7: $MAINT_FILE: ambiguous redirect

If I run the script as root there's no problem:

Code:

root@mycomputer# /root/bin/mupdt "this is a test"
root@mycomputer# cat $MAINT_FILE | tail -n 1
[31May07 04:53:23]  this is a test

What is it that becomes ambiguous when I run it as a normal user? How can I make it so that it's no longer ambiguous?

Tinkster · 05-31-2007, 08:23 PM

That's because the user root (when invoked via sudo) doesn't get
the environment variables from your users session?

Cheers,
Tink

chadwick · 06-01-2007, 09:57 AM

Makes sense. I guess you have to pass it as a parameter instead.