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Re: Changing Users in a script



On Aug 15, 2011, at 2:05 PM, Bob Proulx wrote:

> Hal Vaughan wrote:
>> I have a system with several different users and would like to use
>> cron to run this script as root:
>> 
>> #!/bin/bash
>> 
>> for user in `ls /home/`; do
>> #	echo "Path: $user"
>> 	if [ "${user:0:1}" != "0" ]; then
>> 		path="/home/$user/Backup"
>> 		if [ -e $path ]; then
>> 			echo "Calling backup for user: $user"
>> 			sudo -u $user /usr/local/bin/user-backup
>> 		fi
>> 	fi
>> done
> 
> Personally if I were writing this then if the script is running as
> root then instead of using 'sudo' here I would use 'su' instead.
> 
>  su -c /usr/local/bin/user-backup $user
> 
> Mostly because su is more traditional and "more core" than sudo and
> just seems like the better fit for the job.  But it is a matter of
> taste here.

Senile moment -- I keep forgetting that I can use su for different users, too.  Thanks for the reminder!

>> The idea is that instead of adding a backup script every time I add
>> a user, this script will go through the /home directories and skip
>> any that start with a 0 (a program I'm using creates some
>> directories there, but starts their names with a 0) and
>> automatically call the generic backup script for that user.
> 
> Seems reasonable so far.  Also you should skip directories called
> "lost+found" in the case that /home happens to be a mount point on a
> filesystem such as ext[23] that uses lost+found.

Thanks for the reminder!

>> The problem is sudo can't be run without a tty, so I can run it
>> myself, but it won't run from a script.
> 
> Using 'su' would solve that problem.
> 
>> Any other way I can do this?
> 
> There are distinct advantages to a backup push system.  Not proposing
> that you change away from it.  But I tend to pull backups from /home
> to the backup server.  This means that whatever is in /home comes over
> whether it is associated with a user's home directory or not.  All I
> manage is machines.  Not machines and users.

How is it that a pull system would get more?  I didn't know there'd be files associated with a user that are outside of their home directory.



Hal

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