how to simulte keyboard input from a bash script

jmling · 10-24-2007, 03:14 PM

Hi,

I want to write a little bash script which could sudo to a super user without manually typing in the password from the keyboard, I need this script read password from my bash script itself. But I couldn't make it work. Could anyone here to help me out?

My bash script is as below:
********************************
#!/bin/bash
echo 'about to sue dough'
sudo su - ebba
< "password"
echo 'this did it'
********************************

Thanks a lot in advance!

junmin

kav · 10-24-2007, 03:58 PM

Quote:

I want to write a little bash script which could sudo to a super user without manually typing in the password

No you don't.
This is a bad question. You would never want to do this, ever. I forgive you. Here's what you're gonna do. Abandon this thread, make a new one. Name it something describing the problem behind this problem and let someone else suggest what you should actually do.

Let us never speak of this again.

jmling · 10-24-2007, 04:43 PM

oh... Sorry if I made a bad post.

But yes, I need such a script. Basically, I want input the password from inside the script itself, instead of type in from keyboard. Anything wrong with this initialtive? I need this for my batch automation script.

:-(

wolfperkins · 10-25-2007, 08:43 AM

You should actually configure sudo to allow this command to run as root without a password prompt.

Typically password prompts will not take any text passed in through shell scripts unless they are typed in.

b0uncer · 10-25-2007, 09:05 AM

And even if you did succeed in giving the password that way, note that it would be stored into the file in clear text, which is a serious security flaw as such.

Indeed you can use NOPASSWD in /etc/sudoers configuration file for those commands you want to be able to do without passwords asked. I don't recommend this either unless it's absolutely necessary, but it's definitely better than saving your password in clear text into some place..

jmling · 10-26-2007, 04:33 PM

Thanks for all the comments. Yes, I realized now that I did ask a not proper question. But still worth to do so as I got it straighten out and won't ask it again next time.

I'm going to ask the sys admin to bypass the password for my user.

Thank you for all again! Nice forum here. This is my first post indeed.