sudo syntax

[Bill Campbell]

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004, David Bear wrote:
>I want to run a command
>
>tar czf - / | ssh id at somehost dd of=tarball.tgz
>
>I need to run tar as root.  However, I need to run ssh as user 'id'.
>
>I tried 
>
>sudo tar czf - / | ssh id at somehost dd of=tar.tgz
>
>but am unsure if ssh was launched as 'id' or as root.

Everthing to the left of the pipe symbol is one process (e.g.  sudo), the
process to the right is independent of that, and will run as the normal
user.

>Any way to be certain that sudo is doing what I want?

You could do something like this if you want to see it which would display
the output of id before starting the right side ssh command.

	sudo tar czf - / | ( id ; ssh id at somehost dd of=tar.tgz )

Bill
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