"Bash Sudo Shortcut for Ubuntu"

virtual — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:15:55 +0000

I'll admit it, I love Ubuntu. But I'll come right out and say as well that I would probably say that about most Linux distributions lately - you've come a long way!

When using the bash shell in Ubuntu ad Ubuntu server, there's one caveat to keep in mind: in order to run commands as root, you need to prefix them with the sudo command in order to avoid permissions problems.

There are two ways to avoid this.

1) The shotgun solution. Create a typical root account so you can run su then execute whatever commands you want, and hope you always log out. This can be accomplished by running the command:

sudo passwd

and defining a password. This works, but almost defeats the purpose, don't you think?

2) The time saver. You're bound to forget to prefix those chmod and make commands from time to time - you're human. With this little gem you won't be reminded of your "humanity" so often. When you enter a command that should have been run as root, but forget the sudo part, just type in sudo !! to issue the last command with sudo in front of it. Behold:

$apt-get install bbpress (you'll be able to do this soon, I promise!)
... Permission Denied - you know the drill
$sudo !!
$sudo apt-get install bbpress
Password:

There you go! Like I've always said, shotguns are sloppy solutions.

bn technical support forum Topic: Bash Sudo Shortcut for Ubuntu

"Bash Sudo Shortcut for Ubuntu"