How to pass the password to su/sudo/ssh without overriding the TTY?
LinuxSshPasswordsSudoSuLinux Problem Overview
I'm writing a C Shell program that will be doing su
or sudo
or ssh
. They all want their passwords in console input (the TTY) rather than stdin or the command line.
Does anybody know a solution?
Setting up password-less sudo
is not an option.
[tag:expect] could be an option, but it's not present on my stripped-down system.
Linux Solutions
Solution 1 - Linux
For sudo there is a -S option for accepting the password from standard input. Here is the man entry:
-S The -S (stdin) option causes sudo to read the password from
the standard input instead of the terminal device.
This will allow you to run a command like:
echo myPassword | sudo -S ls /tmp
As for ssh, I have made many attempts to automate/script it's usage with no success. There doesn't seem to be any build-in way to pass the password into the command without prompting. As others have mentioned, the "expect" utility seems like it is aimed at addressing this dilemma but ultimately, setting up the correct private-key authorization is the correct way to go when attempting to automate this.
Solution 2 - Linux
I wrote some Applescript which prompts for a password via a dialog box and then builds a custom bash command, like this:
echo <password> | sudo -S <command>
I'm not sure if this helps.
It'd be nice if sudo accepted a pre-encrypted password, so I could encrypt it within my script and not worry about echoing clear text passwords around. However this works for me and my situation.
Solution 3 - Linux
For ssh
you can use sshpass
: sshpass -p yourpassphrase ssh user@host
.
You just need to download sshpass first :)
$ apt-get install sshpass
$ sshpass -p 'password' ssh username@server
Solution 4 - Linux
For sudo you can do this too:
sudo -S <<< "password" command
Solution 5 - Linux
I've got:
ssh user@host bash -c "echo mypass | sudo -S mycommand"
Works for me.
Solution 6 - Linux
The usual solution to this problem is setuiding a helper app that performs the task requiring superuser access: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setuid
Sudo is not meant to be used offline.
Later edit: SSH can be used with private-public key authentication. If the private key does not have a passphrase, ssh can be used without prompting for a password.
Solution 7 - Linux
Maybe you can use an expect
command?:
expect -c 'spawn ssh root@your-domain.com;expect password;send "your-password\n";interact
That command gives the password automatically.
Solution 8 - Linux
This can be done by setting up public/private keys on the target hosts you will be connecting to. The first step would be to generate an ssh key for the user running the script on the local host, by executing:
ssh-keygen
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/myuser/.ssh/id_rsa): <Hit enter for default>
Overwrite (y/n)? y
Then enter a blank password. After that, copy your ssh key onto the target host which you will be connecting to.
ssh-copy-id <remote_user>@<other_host>
remote_user@other_host's password: <Enter remote user's password here>
After registering the ssh keys, you would be able to perform a silent ssh remote_user@other_host
from you local host.
Solution 9 - Linux
Take a look at expect
linux utility.
It allows you to send output to stdio based on simple pattern matching on stdin.
Solution 10 - Linux
When there's no better choice (as suggested by others), then man socat can help:
(sleep 5; echo PASSWORD; sleep 5; echo ls; sleep 1) |
socat - EXEC:'ssh -l user server',pty,setsid,ctty
EXEC’utes an ssh session to server. Uses a pty for communication
between socat and ssh, makes it ssh’s controlling tty (ctty),
and makes this pty the owner of a new process group (setsid), so
ssh accepts the password from socat.
All of the pty,setsid,ctty complexity is necessary and, while you might not need to sleep as long, you will need to sleep. The echo=0 option is worth a look too, as is passing the remote command on ssh's command line.
Solution 11 - Linux
ssh -t -t me@myserver.io << EOF
echo SOMEPASSWORD | sudo -S do something
sudo do something else
exit
EOF
Solution 12 - Linux
Set SSH up for Public Key Authentication, with no pasphrase on the Key. Loads of guides on the net. You won't need a password to login then. You can then limit connections for a key based on client hostname. Provides reasonable security and is great for automated logins.
Solution 13 - Linux
a better sshpass
alternative is: passh
https://github.com/clarkwang/passh
Login to a remote server
$ passh -p password ssh user@host
Run a command on remote server
$ passh -p password ssh user@host date
other methods to pass the password
> -p
here I explained why it is better than sshpass, and other solutions.
Solution 14 - Linux
You can also pass various parameters as follows:
echo password | echo y | sudo -S pacman -Syu
(Although that's a bad idea, it's just an example)
Solution 15 - Linux
echo <password> | su -c <command> <user>
This is working.
Solution 16 - Linux
I had the same problem. dialog script to create directory on remote pc. dialog with ssh is easy. I use sshpass (previously installed).
dialog --inputbox "Enter IP" 8 78 2> /tmp/ip
IP=$(cat /tmp/ip)
dialog --inputbox "Please enter username" 8 78 2> /tmp/user
US=$(cat /tmp/user)
dialog --passwordbox "enter password for \"$US\" 8 78 2> /tmp/pass
PASSWORD = $(cat /tmp/pass)
sshpass -p "$PASSWORD" ssh $US@$IP mkdir -p /home/$US/TARGET-FOLDER
rm /tmp/ip
rm /tmp/user
rm /tmp/pass
greetings from germany
titus
Solution 17 - Linux
Building on @Jahid's answer, this worked for me on macOS 10.13:
ssh <remote_username>@<remote_server> sudo -S <<< <remote_password> cat /etc/sudoers
Solution 18 - Linux
I once had a use case where I needed to run Sudo and ssh in the same command without stdin
specifying all the variables needed.
This is the command I used
echo sudopassword | sudo -S -u username sshpass -p extsshpassword ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no username@ipaddress " CMD on external machine"
Breaking that command into pieces!
This will allow you to run commands through your machine using Superuser:
echo password | sudo -S -u username
This will allow you to pass ssh password and execute commands on external machines:
sshpass -p sshpassword ssh -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no username@ipaddress " CMD on external machine"
>>make sure you install the sudo and openssh packages on your machine.
Solution 19 - Linux
One way would be to use read -s option .. this way the password characters are not echoed back to the screen. I wrote a small script for some use cases and you can see it in my blog: http://www.datauniv.com/blogs/2013/02/21/a-quick-little-expect-script/
Solution 20 - Linux
USE:
echo password | sudo command
Example:
echo password | sudo apt-get update; whoami
Hope It Helps..
Solution 21 - Linux
You can provide password as parameter to expect script.
Solution 22 - Linux
su -c "Command" < "Password"
Hope it is helpful.