Redirecting output with sudo

ewaller · 2011-04-09 16:53:26

Here is one that has been bugging me off and on for some time.

I want to execute a program using sudo, and redirect its output some place to which user invoking sudo does not not have write permission

Simplistically, something like:

JoeUser$ sudo echo "Appended stuff" >> /etc/afile

I understand why this won't work, but for the life of me, I cannot find an incantation that works. I think it is complicated by the use of commands that are intrinsic to the shall (cat, echo)

I have been through the zsh and bash manuals and have tried various commands to define a block of code to no avail.

Any hints?

thisoldman · 2011-04-09 17:26:31

I got this to work:

$ echo "mytext" | sudo tee /etc/myfile

This also worked:

$ sudo bash -c "echo \"more_text\" >> /etc/myfile"

tavianator · 2011-04-09 19:35:14

Hate to tell a forum mod to RTFM, but:

man sudo wrote:

sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"

Ramses de Norre · 2011-04-09 20:05:33

echo "foo" > bar     ->    echo "foo" | sudo tee bar
echo "foo" >> bar    ->    echo "foo" | sudo tee -a bar

ewaller · 2011-04-09 20:41:48

tavianator wrote:

Hate to tell a forum mod to RTFM, but:
man sudo wrote:
sudo sh -c "cd /home ; du -s * | sort -rn > USAGE"

If the shoe fits....

Thanks everyone. The pipe works in a lot of cases.
Invoking bash with sudo and passing commands is the obvious way (once someone points it out). I guess I could not break out of the box I had built in order to look at the problem from a different angle.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-04-09 16:53:26

Redirecting output with sudo

#2 2011-04-09 17:26:31

Re: Redirecting output with sudo

#3 2011-04-09 19:35:14

Re: Redirecting output with sudo

#4 2011-04-09 20:05:33

Re: Redirecting output with sudo

#5 2011-04-09 20:41:48

Re: Redirecting output with sudo

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