From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Fri Dec  1 15:29:06 2006
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2924816A500
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Fri,  1 Dec 2006 15:29:06 +0000 (UTC)
	(envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com)
Received: from smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk (smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk
	[195.188.213.6])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 03AAF43CD4
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Fri,  1 Dec 2006 15:28:25 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from xfb52@dial.pipex.com)
Received: from [172.23.170.143] (helo=anti-virus02-10)
	by smtp-out3.blueyonder.co.uk with smtp (Exim 4.52)
	id 1GqAJa-0000A8-TM; Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:28:38 +0000
Received: from [82.46.239.57] (helo=[192.168.0.2])
	by asmtp-out4.blueyonder.co.uk with esmtp (Exim 4.52)
	id 1GqAJX-0007rd-AQ; Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:28:35 +0000
Message-ID: <45704A22.9060100@dial.pipex.com>
Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:28:34 +0000
From: Alex Zbyslaw <xfb52@dial.pipex.com>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-GB; rv:1.7.13) Gecko/20061106
X-Accept-Language: en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Ray Still <rastill@shaw.ca>
References: <004601c71559$f2d645f0$6700a8c0@New>
In-Reply-To: <004601c71559$f2d645f0$6700a8c0@New>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: problem with script execution
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 01 Dec 2006 15:29:06 -0000

Ray Still wrote:

>>> Just out of curiosity: What is the "echo * |" supposed to do? From my
>>> point of view the shell will expand "*" to the list of files and
>>> directories in PWD, so "echo *" acts like a simple ls in this context.
>>> This list is piped to sudo. But what does sudo do with these?
>>
>>
>> sorry, I didn't want to show my passwords, so I replaced it with an 
>> astrix. the password of course is being read from the pipe by sudo 
>> because of the -S option.
>
Probably nothing to do with your original problem, but you do know that 
you can allow sudo to execute certain commands without a password?  
Passwords in shell scripts isn't exactly ideal...

E.g. my sudoers has:

Cmnd_Alias      HEALTHD = /usr/local/sbin/healthd
[...]
%wheel  ALL=(root)      NOPASSWD: SMART_STATUS, HEALTHD, MBMON

So anyone in group wheel (me :-)) can excecute any of the named commands 
without any password.  You can also force the flags that will be passed 
- the sudoers man page has more details.

--Alex