Execute Script as another user whilst not being root

Question

Situation:

I\'d like to execute a shellscript directly from a web-gui. The shellscript belongs to the user \"tux\". Since my webserver is running as

Answer 1

You can add your user tux to /etc/sudoers with NOPASSWD to allow it to run sudo without password prompt.

E.g. add this to the end of /etc/sudoers to allow elevated execution of any command without password (note, there's a special tool for that - visudo):

tux    ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:  ALL

Or, a more restricted way - only allow this for your script:

tux    ALL = NOPASSWD: /opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

After that check that the changes are in effect by running any command from terminal, e.g.:

sudo id

and it should not prompt for root password.

UPDATE:

To make Apache run a script that belongs to another user (e.g. tux) add this line to sudoers:

www-data ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /bin/bash /opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

Then you should be able to run it without password like so:

sudo -u tux /opt/tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh

Also, check these:

• How to call shell script from php that requires SUDO?
• sudo in php exec()
• https://serverfault.com/questions/157272/allow-apache-to-run-a-command-as-a-different-user