Bash scripts requiring sudo password

Question

I\'m creating a Bash installer script which compiles and installs some libraries for both OSX and Linux. Because some commands in my script (\"make install\", \"apt-get install\

Answer 1

To get the password, just put sudo echo "Thanks." at the start of the script.

But I would prefer this solution:

if [[ $UID != 0 ]]; then
    echo "Please run this script with sudo:"
    echo "sudo $0 $*"
    exit 1
fi

Answer 2

Another way to go about it :

function checkSudo() {
    if ((EUID != 0)); then
        echo "Granting root privileges for script ( $SCRIPT_NAME )"
        if [[ -t 1 ]]; then
            sudo "$0" "$@"
        else
            exec 1>output_file
            gksu "$0" "$@"
        fi
        exit
    fi
}

Answer 3

Maybe a bit easier to read:

[ $(whoami) == "root" ] || exit

Answer 4

For those who don't want to elevate the entire script (to limit risks by only using sudo within the script where needed) the first part of the accepted answer sudo echo "Thanks" works but won't respond to sudo password failure by exiting the script. To accomplish this, scripts that include sudo commands and want to ensure sudo access before it's used could start with

if [[ ! $(sudo echo 0) ]]; then exit; fi

The caveat is that you are relying on the existence of a sudoers timeout that will last the duration of your script to suppress the rest of the prompts.