sudo echo something etc privilegedFile doesn t work

Question

This is a pretty simple question  at least it seems like it should be  about sudo permissions in Linux   There are a lot of times when I just want to append something to  etc hosts or a similar file but end up not being able to because both  gt  and  gt  gt  are not allowed  even with root   Is there someway to make this work without having to su or sudo su into root

User · Answer

I would note  for the curious  that you can also quote a heredoc  for large blocks    sudo bash -c  cat  lt  lt EOIPFW  gt  gt   etc ipfw conf  lt  xml version   1 0   encoding   UTF-8    gt    lt plist version   1 0   gt     lt dict gt       lt key gt Label lt  key gt       lt string gt com company ipfw lt  string gt       lt key gt Program lt  key gt       lt string gt  sbin ipfw lt  string gt       lt key gt ProgramArguments lt  key gt       lt array gt         lt string gt  sbin ipfw lt  string gt         lt string gt -q lt  string gt         lt string gt  etc ipfw conf lt  string gt       lt  array gt       lt key gt RunAtLoad lt  key gt       lt true gt  lt  true gt     lt  dict gt   lt  plist gt  EOIPFW

User · Answer

Can you change the ownership of the file then change it back after using cat  gt  gt  to append   sudo chown youruser  etc hosts   sudo cat  downloaded hostsadditions  gt  gt   etc hosts   sudo chown root  etc hosts     Something like this work for you

User · Answer

Doing   sudo sh -c  echo  gt  gt  somefile    should work  The problem is that   and    are handled by your shell  not by the  sudoed  command  so the permissions are your ones  not the ones of the user you are  sudoing  into

User · Answer

By using sed -i  with   a   you can append text  containing both variables and special characters  after the last line   For example  adding  NEW HOST with  NEW IP to  etc hosts   sudo sed -i     a  NEW IP t t NEW HOST domain local t NEW HOST   etc hosts   sed options explained    -i for in-place   for last line a for append

User · Answer

Doing   sudo sh -c  echo  gt  gt  somefile    should work  The problem is that   and    are handled by your shell  not by the  sudoed  command  so the permissions are your ones  not the ones of the user you are  sudoing  into

User · Answer

sudo sh -c  echo 127 0 0 1 localhost  gt  gt   etc hosts

User · Answer

Use tee --append or tee -a   echo  deb blah     blah    sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list   Make sure to avoid quotes inside quotes   To avoid printing data back to the console  redirect the output to  dev null   echo  deb blah     blah    sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list  gt   dev null   Remember about the  -a --append  flag   Just tee works like  gt  and will overwrite your file  tee -a works like  gt  gt  and will write at the end of the file

User · Answer

Doing   sudo sh -c  echo  gt  gt  somefile    should work  The problem is that   and    are handled by your shell  not by the  sudoed  command  so the permissions are your ones  not the ones of the user you are  sudoing  into

User · Answer

The problem is that the shell does output redirection  not sudo or echo  so this is being done as your regular user   Try the following code snippet   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedfile

User · Answer

Doing   sudo sh -c  echo  gt  gt  somefile    should work  The problem is that   and    are handled by your shell  not by the  sudoed  command  so the permissions are your ones  not the ones of the user you are  sudoing  into

User · Answer

The issue is that it s your shell that handles redirection  it s trying to open the file with your permissions not those of the process you re running under sudo   Use something like this  perhaps   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedFile

User · Answer

By using sed -i  with   a   you can append text  containing both variables and special characters  after the last line   For example  adding  NEW HOST with  NEW IP to  etc hosts   sudo sed -i     a  NEW IP t t NEW HOST domain local t NEW HOST   etc hosts   sed options explained    -i for in-place   for last line a for append

User · Answer

The problem is that the shell does output redirection  not sudo or echo  so this is being done as your regular user   Try the following code snippet   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedfile

User · Answer

You can also use sponge from the moreutils package and not need to redirect the output  i e   no tee noise to hide    echo  Add this line    sudo sponge -a privfile

User · Answer

You can also use sponge from the moreutils package and not need to redirect the output  i e   no tee noise to hide    echo  Add this line    sudo sponge -a privfile

User · Answer

In bash you can use tee in combination with  gt   dev null to keep stdout clean    echo    comment     sudo tee -a  etc hosts  gt   dev null

User · Answer

echo  Hello World     sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list

User · Answer

Use tee --append or tee -a   echo  deb blah     blah    sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list   Make sure to avoid quotes inside quotes   To avoid printing data back to the console  redirect the output to  dev null   echo  deb blah     blah    sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list  gt   dev null   Remember about the  -a --append  flag   Just tee works like  gt  and will overwrite your file  tee -a works like  gt  gt  and will write at the end of the file

User · Answer

I would note  for the curious  that you can also quote a heredoc  for large blocks    sudo bash -c  cat  lt  lt EOIPFW  gt  gt   etc ipfw conf  lt  xml version   1 0   encoding   UTF-8    gt    lt plist version   1 0   gt     lt dict gt       lt key gt Label lt  key gt       lt string gt com company ipfw lt  string gt       lt key gt Program lt  key gt       lt string gt  sbin ipfw lt  string gt       lt key gt ProgramArguments lt  key gt       lt array gt         lt string gt  sbin ipfw lt  string gt         lt string gt -q lt  string gt         lt string gt  etc ipfw conf lt  string gt       lt  array gt       lt key gt RunAtLoad lt  key gt       lt true gt  lt  true gt     lt  dict gt   lt  plist gt  EOIPFW

User · Answer

In bash you can use tee in combination with  gt   dev null to keep stdout clean    echo    comment     sudo tee -a  etc hosts  gt   dev null

User · Answer

Some user not know solution when using multiples lines  sudo tee -a   path file to create with text  gt   dev null  lt  lt EOT  line 1 line 2 line 3 EOT

User · Answer

The issue is that it s your shell that handles redirection  it s trying to open the file with your permissions not those of the process you re running under sudo   Use something like this  perhaps   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedFile

User · Answer

sudo sh -c  echo 127 0 0 1 localhost  gt  gt   etc hosts

User · Answer

How about  echo text   sudo dd status none of privilegedfile I want to change  proc sys net ipv4 tcp rmem  I did    sudo dd status none of  proc sys net ipv4 tcp rmem  lt  lt  lt  4096 131072 1024000  eliminates the echo with a single line document

User · Answer

The issue is that it s your shell that handles redirection  it s trying to open the file with your permissions not those of the process you re running under sudo   Use something like this  perhaps   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedFile

User · Answer

Using Yoo s answer  put this in your    bashrc   sudoe                 -ne 2     amp  amp  echo  Usage  sudoe  lt text gt   lt file gt    amp  amp  return 1     echo   1    sudo tee --append   2   gt   dev null     Now you can run sudoe  deb blah   blah   etc apt sources list    Edit   A more complete version which allows you to pipe input in or redirect from a file and includes a -a switch to turn off appending  which is on by default    sudoe       if       1      -a             1      --no-append       then     shift  amp  gt  dev null    local failed 1   else     local append  --append    fi    while     failed -ne 1     do     if    -t 0     then       text   1   shift  amp  gt  dev null    break     else       text    cat  lt  amp 0       fi         -z   1      amp  amp  break     echo   text    sudo tee  append   1   gt  dev null  return      done    echo  Usage   0  -a --no-append   text   lt file gt    return 1

User · Answer

echo  Hello World     sudo tee -a  etc apt sources list

User · Answer

How about  echo text   sudo dd status none of privilegedfile I want to change  proc sys net ipv4 tcp rmem  I did    sudo dd status none of  proc sys net ipv4 tcp rmem  lt  lt  lt  4096 131072 1024000  eliminates the echo with a single line document

User · Answer

sudo sh -c  echo 127 0 0 1 localhost  gt  gt   etc hosts

User · Answer

This worked for me  original command  echo  export CATALINA HOME   opt tomcat9    gt  gt   etc environment   Working command   echo  export CATALINA HOME   opt tomcat9    sudo tee  etc environment

User · Answer

Some user not know solution when using multiples lines  sudo tee -a   path file to create with text  gt   dev null  lt  lt EOT  line 1 line 2 line 3 EOT

User · Answer

Can you change the ownership of the file then change it back after using cat  gt  gt  to append   sudo chown youruser  etc hosts   sudo cat  downloaded hostsadditions  gt  gt   etc hosts   sudo chown root  etc hosts     Something like this work for you

User · Answer

The problem is that the shell does output redirection  not sudo or echo  so this is being done as your regular user   Try the following code snippet   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedfile

User · Answer

This worked for me  original command  echo  export CATALINA HOME   opt tomcat9    gt  gt   etc environment   Working command   echo  export CATALINA HOME   opt tomcat9    sudo tee  etc environment

User · Answer

Using Yoo s answer  put this in your    bashrc   sudoe                 -ne 2     amp  amp  echo  Usage  sudoe  lt text gt   lt file gt    amp  amp  return 1     echo   1    sudo tee --append   2   gt   dev null     Now you can run sudoe  deb blah   blah   etc apt sources list    Edit   A more complete version which allows you to pipe input in or redirect from a file and includes a -a switch to turn off appending  which is on by default    sudoe       if       1      -a             1      --no-append       then     shift  amp  gt  dev null    local failed 1   else     local append  --append    fi    while     failed -ne 1     do     if    -t 0     then       text   1   shift  amp  gt  dev null    break     else       text    cat  lt  amp 0       fi         -z   1      amp  amp  break     echo   text    sudo tee  append   1   gt  dev null  return      done    echo  Usage   0  -a --no-append   text   lt file gt    return 1

User · Answer

The problem is that the shell does output redirection  not sudo or echo  so this is being done as your regular user   Try the following code snippet   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedfile

User · Answer

The issue is that it s your shell that handles redirection  it s trying to open the file with your permissions not those of the process you re running under sudo   Use something like this  perhaps   sudo sh -c  echo  something   gt  gt   etc privilegedFile

User · Answer

sudo sh -c  echo 127 0 0 1 localhost  gt  gt   etc hosts

[bash] sudo echo "something" >> /etc/privilegedFile doesn't work

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