Is there a way to run the cd command with superuser privileges to gain access to directories that are owned by root? When I run sudo cd <path>, I get sudo: cd: command not found.
asked Oct 20, 2019 at 15:16
3 Answers
The other answer isn't wrong.
Possibly a better answer is:
The sudo tool is intended to take actions as a superuser, and you're describing something that is more of a state change that would precede actions such as 'ls' or 'vi' or others to make them simpler.
I suggest, e.g. if you wanted to edit a file in /root/private/:
sudo ls /root
sudo ls /root/private
sudoedit /root/private/<name from previous ls command>
This is definitely more typing, and a little harder than just changing directories. However, it is far more audit-able, and much more in-line with the principles behind sudo than running some variant of 'sudo bash.'
If you are working in a secure environment, your IA team will thank you. If you find yourself wondering: "What change did I make the other day?," then you will thank you, because you won't have to wonder what file or files you edited.
All of this said, enabling and executing some form of 'sudo bash' is definitely easier. If you were looking for easier, why are you using 'sudo' in the first place instead of just logging in as root?
answered Oct 20, 2019 at 17:21
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Sounds like you're talking about relying on each admin's .bash_history instead of using something more reliable like etckeeper? Commented Oct 21, 2019 at 8:17
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5The hideously annoying thing in this is that tab-completion of the filename in the last command doesn't work if the non-root user doesn't have read access to the directory. So you have to copy paste or hand-type. I wonder if anyone would have created a
sudo-using completion script for Bash.– ilkkachuCommented Oct 21, 2019 at 11:05 -
1@ilkkachu: At that point I usually just
sudo -sto start a root shell on personal-use systems (so auditing isn't a huge deal). I don't want automatically-generated commands running under sudo. (Cluttering logs at best, at worst exposing some hackily-written completion code to malicious filenames with spaces and worse in them.) Commented Oct 21, 2019 at 23:29 -
@grawity: I was referring to the system security logs, where sudo typically logs commands issued, including time, user, current working directory, etc. Commented Oct 22, 2019 at 3:15
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@PeterCordes, yep. I'd be tempted to just
chmod +ror raise the question if a custom should be made where somestaffgroup has read permissions to root owned directories, because tab-completion is useful. Yes, the completion code would need to be carefully written (and I think I've seen some not work with funny filenames), but I don't think the clutter should be an issue since you can justgrepout anylscommands which don't do anything, and which people will need to run undersudoanyway if they don't have read permissions as their regular UID.– ilkkachuCommented Oct 22, 2019 at 7:19
As you noted, cd is a shell built-in command, and there's a reason for that: the "current directory" is a per-process parameter which can be only changed by the process itself.
Your shell's working directory cannot be changed by any child process – so even if you manage to run cd in a privileged subshell, it'll only change the working directory of that temporary subshell, and it does not matter what method of raising privileges you use.
So for sudo cd to work, sudo itself would have to be a shell built-in, and it would need some way to raise privileges of an already-running process. Currently no such mechanism exists on Linux (nor most other operating systems).
One way to achieve what you want is to run an interactive shell with root privileges (any method works), and just use the regular cd in it:
[user@host /]$ sudo bash
[root@host /]# cd /root/secret
If you want to do it all in one command, it would have to look like this – first change the working directory, then start an interactive shell:
sudo bash -c "cd /root/secret && bash"
su -c "cd /root/secret && zsh"
Note: The outer command doesn't have to be a shell, it just needs to be something that changes its working directory and executes a new command. Recent Linux systems have one or two helpers which could be used:
sudo nsenter --wd="/root/secret" bash # util-linux v2.23 (debian jessie)
sudo env --chdir="/root/secret" bash # coreutils v8.28 (debian buster)
The advantage of this method is that it doesn't require nested quoting; you can run a multi-word command without having troubles with whitespace or special characters.
Finally, some programs have a built-in option to change their working directory:
sudo make -C /etc
sudo git -C /root/secret log
answered Oct 20, 2019 at 16:19
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1
sudo -sstarts an interactive$SHELLin the current directory; it's (AFAIK) the canonical way to dosudo bashCommented Oct 22, 2019 at 7:23
sudo, so you need to invokebashto perform thecdcommand, usingsudo bash -c cd ....cdcommand with superuser privileges, since sudo doesn't work.mkdircommand. Silly mistake.