Switch user

[Gurunath]

Hi,

Do we have an option where the password can be supplied in the same line while we try to switch user ?

I need to incorporate this in a script. Please help !


Ex :- su - user1 ( Do we have an option so that we can enter the password on the same line) like
su - user1 - password

Thanks,
Gurunath

[Karthik S S]

You can use expect for the same (But I would not recommend as it is a potential security risk).

http://hpux.connect.org.uk/hppd/hpux/Tcl/expect-5.39/

http://expect.nist.gov/

-Karthik S S

[Gurunath]

Thanks for your instant reply.

I was looking for any option that I can use with in su to address the requirement.

Thanks again,
Gurunath

[Karthik S S]

Then fine. Refer to Sridhar's post in the following thread,

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/parseCurl.do?CURL=%2Fcm%2FQuestionAnswer%2F1%2C%2C0x54e2c6af36b7d5118ff10090279cd0f9%2C00.html&admit=716493758+1080715221070+28353475

Ex:
#!/wherever/expect -f

set prompt "(%|#|\\$|>)"

set timeout 10

spawn su - username
expect "password "
send "password\r"
expect "$prompt"
send "exit\r"


-Karthik S S

[Andrew Cowan · Accepted solution]

A far more secure way to do this is to create a captive key under SSH. You could make it so that your user could only execute that single command as the target user, without the need for a password. The beauty of this is that you can even do it from another machine, and no passwords are ever required.