Running shell scripts, commands need root/su, how?

digity · 01-07-2010, 12:10 AM

I've written a couple of shell scripts and some of the commands in them need root privileges. I've read somewhere to never put the root or super user's password in a script because it's not encrypted. How do I run these commands as root/su in a script?

Simon Bridge · 01-07-2010, 12:12 AM

sudo scriptname

digity · 01-07-2010, 12:20 AM

oops, sorry. They won't be ran manually, they'll be kicked off by cron. So it has to be automated, no user input required.

evo2 · 01-07-2010, 01:13 AM

You can configure sudo to not require a password for specific commands.

Evo2.

PS. However, if you do this for the script, make very sure that the script is only writable by root. A slightly better approach is just to use sudo for the specific commands where root is needed, not for the whole script.

digity · 01-07-2010, 01:46 AM

hmmm. how about "sudo crontab -e"? won't that make my scripts run with root privileges?

Simon Bridge · 01-07-2010, 05:19 AM

@ digity - you are correct.

Just add it to root's crontab instead of yours.
Running from inside su or sudo can confuse crontab (see man crontab) so:

sudo -i
crontab -e