[SOLVED] Permissions in shell script.

robgeek · 10-19-2013, 07:51 AM

Hello, guys!
I'm using Debian Wheezy 7.1 and i'm writting a simple shellscript to do some initial configurations in my system when i will install it, but i'm having a problem. Some configurations i have to do as superuser and some not. I don't want to make two shellscripts, so i would like to know how can i make my script do some things as superuser and some things as normal user.
I dont want to use sudo, by the way.
In Google i found some tutorials but all they use sudo!
I've tried this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

echo 'Starting.'
su
mypasswordhere
echo 'Im super user'
exit
echo 'Im a normal user.'

Thank You.

rknichols · 10-19-2013, 09:16 AM

There are several reasons why that way is not going to work. It would be much easier to start the script as super user. Then you can easily use su to run some commands as another user without needing a password:

Code:

#some
#root
#commands
#here

su - otheruser -c "pwd  #this runs as otheruser"

#more
#root
#commands

If you want to run commands as "otheruser" but still in root's environment (current directory, exported variables, ...), just use "su otheruser ..." in place of "su - otheruser ..."