Running a script with mixed privilages

[diyhouse]

Trying to automate the install of a tuner card driver,.... the problem is some of the script is run as root,.. some as user.

How can I run the different parts of the build process within the script as root, without changing sudo stuff and affecting all other 'make' or 'modprobe' executions on my system.

This is the list of commands I run,.. I appreciate I can drop the sudo if I run the set of commands within a script as root,.. but that defeats what I want to do as some of the script needs to run as user,. and not root.

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​ sudo rm -r -f /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media
cd ~/Downloads/tbs-linux-drivers_v140113/linux-tbs-drivers
sudo make clean
sudo make distclean
sudo ./v4l/tbs-x86_64.sh
make -j5
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v tbs62x0fe
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Hope that makes sense,.. and some out there has some ideas for me that escape my limited knowledge..

many thanks

[schragge]

sudo before a command affects only that one command whether you do it manually or inside a script, so I don't quite understand what do you mean.

Your script would look like (with my comments in red)

#!/bin/sh
sudo rm -r -f /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/media # I suppose you know what you're doing
cd ~/Downloads/tbs-linux-drivers_v140113/linux-tbs-drivers
make clean  # no need to be root for this
make distclean  # neither for this one
./v4l/tbs-x86_64  # nor for this one
make -j5
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v tbs62x0fe

You run this script as normal user. When executing the first command that is prefixed with sudo it will ask your for password. Then each further command in the script prefixed with sudo will be executed with root privileges.

[diyhouse]

That's great,.. I was not aware that running sudo within a script worked as though one was typing in at the command line,.. ( I assumed it would prompt for the password at each sudo command ).
Many Thanks

[Lars Noodén]

That's great,.. I was not aware that running sudo within a script worked as though one was typing in at the command line,.. ( I assumed it would prompt for the password at each sudo command ).
Many Thanks

The default timeout is 15 minutes per tty. You can change that, if needed.

[HermanAB]

Howdy,

The reason why these things are usually not scripted, is because invariably, something will go wrong, requiring human intervention somewhere along the line. So your script requires error handling after *every* step to make it robust.