script to run synaptic as another user [SOLVED]

[sickpig]

[SOLVED] - tnx to a deleted post and of course everyone who replied

Folks,

I am logged in as user 'a' and I can run synaptic as user 'b' by

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su b
sudo synaptic

How can I achieve the above with a bash script?

[cds60601]

Probably notthe smartest way nor exactly what you want to do, but what I have done is this:

in my sudoers file:

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chris   ALL = NOPASSWD: ALL

Then I have a few simple alias setup:

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alias pacman='sudo apt $1'
alias pamac='sudo synaptic-pkexec &' 

I use pamac and pacman since I came off of Arch
but this does what I need it to do. Again, not exactly what you are asking but I hope it lends to some ideas for you.

C

[Wheelerof4te]

Create an empty file with this content:

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#!/bin/bash
su b && sudo synaptic

Save the file and run it in Terminal. You can add the script to your $PATH, so that you can run it from anywhere. Google how to do that.
EDIT: It probably won't work, because doing su b will just leave you at the user's b shell. Also, it needs to be made executable first.

[sickpig]

thanks guys
@cds60601 appreciate your advise but I am wary of using NOPASSWD especially since I am hardening my system's security posture.

@Wheelerof4te, thank you kindly for the suggested option, i had been playing around several alternatives along those lines like

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su b -S /bin/sh -c /home/b/synaptic.sh (script to launch synaptic)
or 
gksudo -u b 'synaptic'

You have to do xhost +local: before running gksudo though to allow other user to share screen resources
they were not what I was after.

Then I swear I saw Head_on_a_Stick's post advising below

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su b -c '/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec'

Excellent piece of advise. Bullseye. I can't c that post anymore (it was probably this message will self destruct once u see it kind of a thing)

I rolled with it and I discovered i can just run synaptic-pkexec no need for su or anything else. upon running synaptic-pkexec i was presented with a polkit prompt to input the admin password like below:


this was no good because i had to change the user from a to b. one additional mouse click, now we cant have that can we?

then i asked internet and it provided

To set an user (say b) as an administrator for polkit, create a file in /etc/polkit-1/localauthority.conf.d/ (say 99-custom.conf), containing:

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[Configuration]
AdminIdentities=unix-user:b;unix-user:a

credit - https://askubuntu.com/questions/542397/ ... entication

am a very happy puppy now

Many thanks to Head_on_a_Stick. If not for your excellent how to articles and numerous helpful posts(even self destructing ones), I would have still been in Debian stone ages. Thanku thanku.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Then I swear I saw Head_on_a_Stick's post advising below

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su b -c '/usr/bin/synaptic-pkexec'

Excellent piece of advise. Bullseye. I can't c that post anymore (it was probably this message will self destruct once u see it kind of a thing)

I deleted the post because the su command requires a password but doesn't provide a graphical prompt window; I was looking for a better solution but I got distracted. FWIW using sudo's -U option with an entry in /etc/sudoers to obviate the need for a password would probably be the way but using pkexec alone makes more sense.

As an aside, it's better to always prefer POSIX (!#/bin/sh) scripts over bash unless you need any of bash's special features (called "bashisms") because /bin/sh is symlinked to dash in Debian and that is a faster, lighter, less buggy shell.

And please remove the "-tnx to HOAS" bit from the thread title, it may interfere with the SEO effect of the [SOLVED] tag and possibly also discourage the other people who helped out in this thread.

[sickpig]

And please remove the "-tnx to HOAS" bit from the thread title, it may interfere with the SEO effect of the [SOLVED] tag and possibly also discourage the other people who helped out in this thread.

done, though I don't entirely agree that it would have discouraged anyone.