UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi all, first time here, but I figured you'd be the ones to ask...

I want to write a scrip which starts in shell ' $ ' and give it a command, then change to superuser and give it more commands. Then exit su, and give it more commands at '$' Is this possible?

Ex:

**************************************************
#!/bin/sh
echo "Hello, in $"

su root # it will ask for a password now, how do I give it to it?
???????? #password

# now in su mode at prompt #

echo "Hello, in #"
ls
#and some more commands

exit #leave su mode
#come back to '$'

echo "back to $"
echo "I'm done."

**********************************************

Any help would greatly appreciated

Thanks

~J

If you really want it to do just some certain commands as root, then put those into a second script and run the su as shown:
su - root -c "/usr/local/bin/otherjunk"

If you are running this from a terminal, then it WILL ask for the password. If you are trying to make it work in say cron, then it will not.

So your first script:
#!/bin/sh
echo "Hello, in $"
su - root -c "/usr/local/bin/otherjunk"
echo "back to $"
echo "I'm done."

Your second script might be able to just have the commands you wanted to run:
echo "hello, in $SHELL as `id`"
ls
exit


Otherwise, you would need something like expect to run what you are looking for.