CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashcron
SachinJose
SachinJose

Reputation: 8522

sudo password automation is not working as expected when executing from crontab?

I have a shell script as follows.

abc.sh

echo "Password" | sudo -S /etc/init.d/mysqld status

It is working fine when I am executing directly from shell. My problem comes into picture when I am trying to execute the same as cron (crontab), it is not working. sudo -S options is not working well with crontab. Is there any other option to specify sudo password in shell script(automation)

I could try modifing the /etc/sudoers file by adding NOPASSWD option, if I have root access. But unfortunately I dont have root access to modify /etc/sudoers file. I have the sudo access only for executing certain commands.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 868

Answers (1)

Billy
Billy

Reputation: 607

Sudo -S seems to works on my Ubuntu 12.04:

# m h  dom mon dow   command
 * * * * * cat /etc/shadow > /tmp/shadow.txt 2>&1

results in:

$ cat /tmp/shadow.txt 
cat: /etc/shadow: Permission denied

whereas

# m h  dom mon dow   command
* * * * * echo 'password' | sudo -S cat /etc/shadow > /tmp/shadow.txt 2>&1

results in:

$ head /tmp/shadow.txt 
[sudo] password for user: root:!:15736:0:99999:7:::
daemon:*:15453:0:99999:7:::
bin:*:15453:0:99999:7:::
...

Edit:

Here's a hack to get the above Ubuntu code to work on CentOS 6.4: 

* * * * * export DISPLAY=:0 && gnome-terminal -e 'bash -c "echo password | sudo -S cat /etc/shadow > /tmp/shadow 2>&1"'

Upvotes: 1

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