su pass password to script

Question

I am trying to write a script that will run the following commands:

sudo su
runmqsc_result=`su -c \"runmqsc QMGR < /home/rob/query_queue.txt\" -m \"mqm\"`         


        

Answer 1

This solution work by using 'script' command from the 'bsdutiles' package that setup a pty (a terminal). The 'sleep' command is there to prevent sending the password before the 'su' command is ready to read it. The 'tail' command remove the "Password:" input line issued by 'su'.

 { sleep 1; echo rootpassword } | script -qc 'su -c "runmqsc QMGR < /home/rob/query_queue.txt" -m "mqm"' /dev/null | tail -n +2

Beware that the rootpassword could be see in many ways (history, ps, /proc/, etc...). Start the command with a space to at least avoid history recording.