Run sudo command within directory

Question

Possible solutions could be:

1. Starting interactive session.

   sudo -s <<< "cd dir ; command"
   

   or

   sudo /bin/bash -c "cd dir ; command"
   

   But I don't have /bin/bash /bin/sh /bin/su or other sudoer permissions

2. Changing directory before sudo is done.

   cd dir ; sudo command
   

   But I don't have permission to enter the dir.

3. I need a general case pwd set (like Popen cwd), so below is not answer I can use:

   sudo command /path/to/file
   

What I'm trying to write is python Popen wrapper with sudo=True/False option, and currently I'm trying to somehow get cwd parameter to work.

Solution 1

I'm not sure what the bigger picture is, but your approach should be to run the command with on a file in the directory. E.g. if you want to run grep regex file where file is in /root, then you should approach it like this:

$ sudo grep regex /root/file

And not:

$ sudo 'cd /root; grep regex file'
sudo: cd /root; grep regex file: command not found

Why this output? Well, it's shell syntax and sudo isn't running the command in another interactive shell.

Another approach would be to alter the environment variable PWD, like this:

$ sudo -i PWD=/root grep regex file

Solution 2

For me a combination of sudo and screen worked out:

sudo -iu vagrant screen -mS npm_install bash -c 'cd /vagrant && npm install'

This command first switches to the vagrant user. Then as vagrant changes the directory to /vagrant and executes npm install.

Comments

[Andrew Onischuk]

The first approach I cannot use to set pwd in general case. (Added the bigger picture to the question) The second doesnt work for me since, it is not configured as you said (in general case for the user of our software)

[gertvdijk]

@AndrewOnischuk yes, second approach doesn't work, you're right. removed it.

[Andrew Onischuk]

That actually works with -i specified sudo -i PWD=/root ls, thanks. Exactly what I was looking for

[sffc]

A practical use case is when you need to run "make install" in a directory you don't own, e.g., in the home directory of an unprivileged user. (The alternative in that case would be to use sudo make -C ~unprivileged/project install.)

[Yordan Georgiev]

unix.stackexchange.com/a/109570/37428