I want to change to root to execute a command in a shell script then revert back to my user.
Basically I want to mount a share (thus needing to be root), copy files across as myself, then unmount the filesystem but the script will be run by cron at late night automatically so I don’t want the script to stop and ask for a password.
Is it possible?
Otherwise the two alternatives I can think of is;-
[ol]
[li]Have 3 scripts. One runs as root at X time that mounts the file system, next one runs as me and copies the files across at X+Y time, then the third runs as root at X+Y+Z time to unmount the filesystem
[/li][li]Run the script as su, then chmod the directory and files back to my user.
[/li][/ol]
Can you define the cron job as root so it has the necessary privilege? You would then have to change ownership of the files after copying them (or whatever.)
Starting a cron job as root sounds like a Bad Thing even if you can do it. How about creating an account with just the extra rights you need and using that to run the cron job? (The script would still have to change ownership but it would generally be safer.)
Then I’ll go back to my plan of having three scripts, one to mount, one to rdiff the next to unmount. Inelegant but I see it working.[/QUOTE]
I assume your mount command is owned by root. If it is, setting the uid bit on it would make it run as root regardless of who invokes the command. You may not have execute permissions for mount, that could have been got round by using a script to invoke it, and would probably be better than changing the mount command’s default permissions.
TFW’s script looks fine to me and should work, there’s always more than one way of skinning a cat on Linux.
if all else fails you could try installing “sudo” unless it’s already installed… and give your user account the rights to run the mount command as root.
I set the Cron to run at 30 15 * * * /scriptlocation and it didn’t work. I’ll redo it tomorrow if my three prong scripts don’t work.[/QUOTE]
Check roots mailbox and remember cron does not load any environment, all paths to executables need to be full paths or define paths in the shell scripts.
I’m assuming you have cron working already with cron.allow and cron.deny as they should be.
I know it doesn’t work as the backup folder remains empty. Paths were full paths in both the cron and the shell script (found rdiff-backup didn’t like working without full paths either)
