sudo
 

I have a question about sudo. Currently, when I use sudo on a system, I don't have to supply a password for restarting apache. Is it possible to set a password and pipe it to sudo?

I guess it is, but to me it sounds like a security risk "piping" a password, especially if you thought to do it clear-text-wise.

EDIT: of course it's not good having no password at all, either.

I wasn't planning on doing in real clear text. But using a C application something like this:

char pass[20]={98,105,106,111};
sprintf(cmd, "echo %c%c%c%c | sudo -S /etc/init.d/apache2 restart", pass[2], pass[3], pass[0], pass[1]);
system(cmd);