Root user sudo equivalent in Cygwin

Question

I m trying to run a bash script in Cygwin     I get Must run as root  i e  sudo   scriptname errors     chmod 777 scriptname does nothing to help     I ve looked for ways to imitate sudo on Cygwin  to add a root user  since calling  su  renders the error su  user root does not exist  anything useful  and have found nothing     Anyone have any suggestions

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Based on  mat-khor s answer  I took the syswin su exe  saved it as manufacture-syswin-su exe  and wrote this wrapper script  It handles redirection of the command s stdout and stderr  so it can be used in a pipe  etc  Also  the script exits with the status of the given command   Limitations    The syswin-su options are currently hardcoded to use the current user  Prepending env USERNAME     to the script invocation overrides it  If other options were needed  the script would have to distinguish between syswin-su and command arguments  e g  splitting at the first --  If the UAC prompt is cancelled or declined  the script hangs          bin bash set -e    join command    into a single string with quoting  required for syswin-su  cmd      set -x  set --         2 gt  amp 1   perl -nle  print  1 if   bset --           tmpDir   mktemp -t -d --    basename   0     date    Y m dT H M S   XXX   mkfifo --   tmpDir out  mkfifo --   tmpDir err   cat  gt  gt    tmpDir script   lt  lt -SCRIPT        bin env bash      cmd  gt    tmpDir out  2 gt    tmpDir err      echo      gt    tmpDir status  SCRIPT  chmod 700 --   tmpDir script   manufacture-syswin-su -s bash -u   USERNAME  -m -c  cygstart --showminimized bash -c   tmpDir script    gt   dev null  amp  cat --   tmpDir err   gt  amp 2  amp  cat --   tmpDir out  wait    exit    lt   tmpDir status

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I met this discussion looking for some details on the sudo implementation in different operating systems  Reading it I found that the solution by  brian-white  https   stackoverflow com a 42956057 3627676  is useful but can be improved slightly  I avoided creating the temporary file and implemented to execute everything by the single script    Also I investigated the next step of the improvement to output within the single window console  Unfortunately  without any success  I tried to use named pipes to capture STDOUT STDERR and print in the main window  But child process didn t write to named pipes  However writing to a regular file works well    I dropped any attempts to find the root cause and left the current solution as is  Hope my post can be useful as well   Improvements    no temporary file no parsing and reconstructing the command line options wait the elevated command use mintty or bash  if the first one not found return the command exit code            bin bash        Being Administrators  invoke the command directly     id -G   grep -qw 544                           exit                 The CYG SUDO variable is used to control the command invocation       -z   CYG SUDO                 mintty     which mintty 2  dev null            export CYG SUDO              cygstart --wait --action runas  mintty  bin bash   0               exit                 Now we are able to        -- launch the command       -- display the message       -- return the exit code              RETVAL         echo   0  Press  to close window         read      exit  RETVAL

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This answer is based off of another answer   First of all  make sure your account is in the Administrators group   Next  create a generic  runas-admin bat  file with the following content    if  1  1   if 1  0   ELSE  echo off amp SETLOCAL ENABLEEXTENSIONS  gt nul 2 gt  amp 1   SYSTEMROOT  system32 cacls exe    SYSTEMROOT  system32 config system         cscript   E JScript   nologo    f0          goto  EOF   FOR   A IN      DO          A     goto  EOF  end  ELSE args   WScript Arguments  newargs       for  var i   0  i  lt  args length  i          newargs           args i             ShA new ActiveXObject  Shell Application    ShA ShellExecute  cmd exe    c     WScript ScriptFullName     newargs          runas  5    end   Then execute the batch file like this     runas-admin bat   lt command1 gt   parm1  parm2          lt command2 gt   parm1  parm2          For exaxmple     runas-admin bat  net localgroup newgroup1  add   net localgroup newgroup2  add    Just make sure to enclose each separate command in double quotes   You will only get the UAC prompt once using this method and this procedure has been generalized so you could use any kind of command

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Just simplifying the accepted answer  copy past the below in a Cygwin terminal and you are done   x000D   x000D  cat  lt  lt EOF  gt  gt   bin sudo    usr bin bash cygstart --action runas       EOF chmod  X  bin sudo x000D   x000D   x000D

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Can t fully test this myself  I don t have a suitable script to try it out on  and I m no Linux expert  but you might be able to hack something close enough     I ve tried these steps out  and they  seem  to work  but don t know if it will suffice for your needs   To get round the lack of a  root  user    Create a user on the LOCAL windows machine called  root   make it a member of the  Administrators  group Mark the bin bash exe as  Run as administrator  for all users  obviously you will have to turn this on off as and when you need it  Hold down the left shift button in windows explorer while right clicking on the Cygwin bat file Select  Run as a different user  Enter   root as the username and then your password    This then runs you as a user called  root  in cygwin  which coupled with the  Run as administrator  on the bash exe file might be enough   However you still need a sudo   I faked this  and someone else with more linux knowledge can probably fake it better  by creating a file called  sudo  in  bin and using this command line to send the command to su instead   su -c        The command line  sudo vim  and others seem to work ok for me  so you might want to try it out   Be interested to know if this works for your needs or not

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Or install syswin package  which includes a port of su for cygwin  http   sourceforge net p manufacture wiki syswin-su

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A new proposal to enhance SUDO for CygWin from GitHub in this thread  named TOUACExt    Automatically opens sudoserver py  Automatically closes sudoserver py after timeout  15 minutes default   Request UAC elevation prompt Yes No style for admin users  Request Admin user password for non-admin users  Works remotely  SSH  with admin accounts  Creates log    Still in Pre-Beta  but seems to be working

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Try    chmod -R ug rwx  lt dir gt    where  lt dir gt  is the directory on which you want to change permissions

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What I usually do is have a registry  Open Here  helper in order to open a cygwin shell with administrative privileges quite easy from anywhere in my computer   Be aware you have to have the cygwin  chere  package installed  use  chere -i -m  from an elevated cygwin shell first   Assuming your cygwin installation is in C  cygwin     Here s the registry code   Windows Registry Editor Version 5 00   -HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash    HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash     Open Cygwin Here as Root   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash command     c   cygwin  bin  mintty exe -i  Cygwin-Terminal ico -e  bin xhere  bin bash exe    -HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory Background shell cygwin bash    HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory Background shell cygwin bash     Open Cygwin Here as Root   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory Background shell cygwin bash command     c   cygwin  bin  mintty exe -i  Cygwin-Terminal ico -e  bin xhere  bin bash exe    -HKEY CLASSES ROOT Drive shell cygwin bash    HKEY CLASSES ROOT Drive shell cygwin bash     Open Cygwin Here as Root   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Drive shell cygwin bash command     c   cygwin  bin  mintty exe -i  Cygwin-Terminal ico -e  bin xhere  bin bash exe    Hope this helps  Let me know if it works for you  Thanks   PS  You can grab this code  copy and paste it and save it in a name reg file to run it    or you can manually add the values

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It seems that cygstart runas does not properly handle      and thus commands that have arguments containing spaces  and perhaps other shell meta-characters -- I didn t check  will not work correctly   I decided to just write a small sudo script that works by writing a temporary script that does the parameters correctly       bin bash    If already admin  just run the command in-line    This works on my Win10 machine  dunno about others  if id -G   grep -q   544    then            exit    fi    cygstart runas doesn t handle arguments with spaces correctly so create   a script that will do so properly  tmpfile   mktemp  tmp sudo XXXXXX  echo      bin bash   gt  gt  tmpfile echo  export PATH    PATH     gt  gt  tmpfile echo   1      gt  gt  tmpfile shift for arg in       do   qarg  echo   arg    sed -e  s            g     echo      qarg       gt  gt  tmpfile done echo  gt  gt  tmpfile    cygstart opens a new window which vanishes as soon as the command is complete    Give the user a chance to see the output  echo  echo -ne   n 0  press  lt enter gt  to close window        gt  gt  tmpfile echo  read enter   gt  gt  tmpfile    Clean up after ourselves  echo  rm -f  tmpfile   gt  gt  tmpfile    Do it as Administrator  cygstart --action runas  bin bash  tmpfile

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I answered this question on SuperUser but only after the OP disregarded the unhelpful answer that was at the time the only answer to the question   Here is the proper way to elevate permissions in Cygwin  copied from my own answer on SuperUser   I found the answer on the Cygwin mailing list  To run command with elevated privileges in Cygwin  precede the command with cygstart --action runas like this     cygstart --action runas command   This will open a Windows dialogue box asking for the Admin password and run the command if the proper password is entered   This is easily scripted  so long as   bin is in your path  Create a file   bin sudo with the following content      usr bin bash cygstart --action runas        Now make the file executable     chmod  x   bin sudo   Now you can run commands with real elevated privileges     sudo elevatedCommand   You may need to add   bin to your path  You can run the following command on the Cygwin CLI  or add it to    bashrc     PATH  HOME bin  PATH   Tested on 64-bit Windows 8   You could also instead of above steps add an alias for this command to    bashrc     alias to simulate sudo alias sudo  cygstart --action runas

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You probably need to run the cygwin shell as Administrator  You can right click the shortcut and click run as administrator or go into the properties of the shortcut and check it in the compatability section  Just beware     root permissions can be dangerous

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I landed here through google  and I actually believe I ve found a way to gain a fully functioning root promt in cygwin   Here are my steps   First you need to rename the Windows Administrator account to  root  Do this by opening start manu and typing  gpedit msc   Edit the entry under Local Computer Policy   Computer Configuration   Windows Settings   Security Settings   Local Policies   Security Options   Accounts  Rename administrator account  Then you ll have to enable the account if it isn t yet enabled  Local Computer Policy   Computer Configuration   Windows Settings   Security Settings   Local Policies   Security Options   Accounts  Administrator account status   Now log out and log into the root account   Now set an environment variable for cygwin  To do that the easy way  Right Click My Computer   Properties  Click  on the left sidebar   Advanced system settings   Near the bottom click the  Enviroment Variables  button  Under  System Variables  click the  New     button  For the name put  cygwin  without the quotes  For the value  enter in your cygwin root directory    Mine was C  cygwin    Press OK and close all of that to get back to the desktop   Open a Cygwin terminal  cygwin bat   Edit the file  etc passwd and change the line     Administrator unused 500 503 U-MACHINE Administrator S-1-5-21-12345678-1234567890-1234567890-500  home Administrator  bin bash   To this  your numbers  and machine name will be different  just make sure you change the highlighted numbers to 0       root unused 0 0 U-MACHINE root S-1-5-21-12345678-1234567890-1234567890-0  root  bin bash   Now that all that is finished  this next bit will make the  su  command work   Not perfectly  but it will function enough to use  I don t think scripts will function correctly  but hey  you got this far  maybe you can find the way  And please share   Run this command in cygwin to finalize the deal   mv  bin su exe  bin  su exe backup cat  gt   bin su bat  lt  lt   EOF   ECHO OFF RUNAS  savecred  user root  cygwin  cygwin bat EOF ln -s  bin su bat  bin su echo    echo  All finished    Log out of the root account and back into your normal windows user account   After all of that  run the new  su bat  manually by double clicking it in explorer  Enter in your password and go ahead and close the window   Now try running the su command from cygwin and see if everything worked out alright

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Being unhappy with the available solution  I adopted nu774 s script to add security and make it easier to setup and use  The project is available on Github  To use it  just download cygwin-sudo py and run it via python3 cygwin-sudo py   yourcommand     You can set up an alias for convenience   alias sudo  python3  path-to-cygwin-sudo cygwin-sudo py

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A very simple way to have a cygwin shell and corresponding subshells to operate with administrator privileges is to change the properties of the link which opens the initial shell   The following is valid for Windows 7   perhaps for previous versions too  but I ve not checked   I usually start the cygwin shell from a cygwin-link in the start button  or desktop   Then  I changed the properties of the cygwin-link in the tabs   Compatibility Privilege Level   and checked the box    Run this program as an administrator   This allows the cygwin shell to open with administrator privileges and the corresponding subshells too

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Building on dotancohen s answer I m using an alias   alias sudo  cygstart --action runas    Works as a charm   sudo chown User Group  lt file gt    And if you have SysInternals installed you can even start a command shell as the system user very easily  sudo psexec -i -s -d cmd

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Use this to get an admin window with either bash or cmd running  from any directories context menue  Just right click on a directory name  and select the entry or hit the highlited button   This is based on the chere tool and the unfortunately not working answer  for me  from link boy  It works fine for me using Windows 8    A side effect is the different color in the admin cmd window  To use this on bash  you can change the  bashrc file of the admin user   I coudln t get the  background  version  right click into an open directory  to run  Feel free to add it   Windows Registry Editor Version 5 00   HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash      amp Bash Prompt Here   Icon   C   cygwin  Cygwin ico    HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash command     C   cygwin  bin  bash -c    bin xhere  bin bash exe   L       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash root      amp Root Bash Prompt Here   Icon   C   cygwin  Cygwin ico   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin bash root command     runas  savecred  user administrator   C   cygwin  bin  bash -c      bin xhere  bin bash exe   L           HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin cmd      amp Command Prompt Here    HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin cmd command     cmd exe  k cd  L   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin cmd root     Roo amp t Command Prompt Here   HasLUAShield       HKEY CLASSES ROOT Directory shell cygwin cmd root command     runas  savecred  user administrator   cmd exe  t 1E  k cd  L

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I found sudo-for-cygwin  maybe this would work  it is a client server application that uses a python script to spawn a child process in windows  pty  and  bridges user s tty and the process I O   It requires python in windows and Python modules greenlet  and eventlet in Cygwin

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