How do I use sudo to redirect output to a location I don t have permission to write to

Question

I ve been given sudo access on one of our development RedHat linux boxes  and I seem to find myself quite often needing to redirect output to a location I don t normally have write access to   The trouble is  this contrived example doesn t work   sudo ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   I just receive the response   -bash   root test out  Permission denied   How can I get this to work

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

sudo at now   at gt  echo test  gt   tmp test out   at gt   lt EOT gt    job 1 at Thu Sep 21 10 49 00 2017

User · Answer

A trick I figured out myself was  sudo ls -hal  root    sudo dd of  root test out

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Don t mean to beat a dead horse  but there are too many answers here that use tee  which means you have to redirect stdout to  dev null unless you want to see a copy on the screen    A simpler solution is to just use cat like this   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo bash -c  cat  gt   root test out    Notice how the redirection is put inside quotes so that it is evaluated by a shell started by sudo instead of the one running it

User · Answer

A trick I figured out myself was  sudo ls -hal  root    sudo dd of  root test out

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

The problem is that the command gets run under sudo  but the redirection gets run under your user  This is done by the shell and there is very little you can do about it   sudo command  gt   some file log  -----v-----  -------v-------     command       redirection   The usual ways of bypassing this are    Wrap the commands in a script which you call under sudo   If the commands and or log file changes  you can make the  script take these as arguments  For example   sudo log script command  log file txt  Call a shell and pass the command line as a parameter with -c  This is especially useful for one off compound commands  For example   sudo bash -c    command1 arg  command2 arg     gt   log file txt

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Don t mean to beat a dead horse  but there are too many answers here that use tee  which means you have to redirect stdout to  dev null unless you want to see a copy on the screen    A simpler solution is to just use cat like this   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo bash -c  cat  gt   root test out    Notice how the redirection is put inside quotes so that it is evaluated by a shell started by sudo instead of the one running it

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

Don t mean to beat a dead horse  but there are too many answers here that use tee  which means you have to redirect stdout to  dev null unless you want to see a copy on the screen    A simpler solution is to just use cat like this   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo bash -c  cat  gt   root test out    Notice how the redirection is put inside quotes so that it is evaluated by a shell started by sudo instead of the one running it

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Yet another variation on the theme   sudo bash  lt  lt EOF ls -hal  root   gt   root test out EOF   Or of course   echo  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    sudo bash   They have the  tiny  advantage that you don t need to remember any arguments to sudo or sh bash

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Don t mean to beat a dead horse  but there are too many answers here that use tee  which means you have to redirect stdout to  dev null unless you want to see a copy on the screen    A simpler solution is to just use cat like this   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo bash -c  cat  gt   root test out    Notice how the redirection is put inside quotes so that it is evaluated by a shell started by sudo instead of the one running it

User · Answer

A trick I figured out myself was  sudo ls -hal  root    sudo dd of  root test out

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

I would do it this way   sudo su -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out

User · Answer

The way I would go about this issue is   If you need to write replace the file   echo  some text    sudo tee  path to file   If you need to append to the file   echo  some text    sudo tee -a  path to file

User · Answer

This is based on the answer involving tee  To make things easier I wrote a small script  I call it suwrite  and put it in  usr local bin  with  x permission       bin sh if        0     then     echo  USAGE   lt command writing to stdout gt    suwrite  -a   lt output file 1 gt        gt  amp 2     exit 1 fi for arg in        do     if     arg  dev        arg      then         echo  Found dangerous argument     arg     Will exit           exit 2     fi done sudo tee       gt   dev null   As shown in the USAGE in the code  all you have to do is to pipe the output to this script followed by the desired superuser-accessible filename and it will automatically prompt you for your password if needed  since it includes sudo    echo test   suwrite  root test txt   Note that since this is a simple wrapper for tee  it will also accept tee s -a option to append  and also supports writing to multiple files at the same time   echo test2   suwrite -a  root test txt echo test-multi   suwrite  root test-a txt  root test-b txt   It also has some simplistic protection against writing to  dev  devices which was a concern mentioned in one of the comments on this page

User · Answer

The problem is that the command gets run under sudo  but the redirection gets run under your user  This is done by the shell and there is very little you can do about it   sudo command  gt   some file log  -----v-----  -------v-------     command       redirection   The usual ways of bypassing this are    Wrap the commands in a script which you call under sudo   If the commands and or log file changes  you can make the  script take these as arguments  For example   sudo log script command  log file txt  Call a shell and pass the command line as a parameter with -c  This is especially useful for one off compound commands  For example   sudo bash -c    command1 arg  command2 arg     gt   log file txt

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Yet another variation on the theme   sudo bash  lt  lt EOF ls -hal  root   gt   root test out EOF   Or of course   echo  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    sudo bash   They have the  tiny  advantage that you don t need to remember any arguments to sudo or sh bash

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

This is based on the answer involving tee  To make things easier I wrote a small script  I call it suwrite  and put it in  usr local bin  with  x permission       bin sh if        0     then     echo  USAGE   lt command writing to stdout gt    suwrite  -a   lt output file 1 gt        gt  amp 2     exit 1 fi for arg in        do     if     arg  dev        arg      then         echo  Found dangerous argument     arg     Will exit           exit 2     fi done sudo tee       gt   dev null   As shown in the USAGE in the code  all you have to do is to pipe the output to this script followed by the desired superuser-accessible filename and it will automatically prompt you for your password if needed  since it includes sudo    echo test   suwrite  root test txt   Note that since this is a simple wrapper for tee  it will also accept tee s -a option to append  and also supports writing to multiple files at the same time   echo test2   suwrite -a  root test txt echo test-multi   suwrite  root test-a txt  root test-b txt   It also has some simplistic protection against writing to  dev  devices which was a concern mentioned in one of the comments on this page

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

Clarifying a bit on why the tee option is preferable  Assuming you have appropriate permission to execute the command that creates the output  if you pipe the output of your command to tee  you only need to elevate tee s privledges with sudo and direct tee to write  or append  to the file in question   in the example given in the question that would mean   ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out   for a couple more practical examples     kill off one source of annoying advertisements echo 127 0 0 1 ad doubleclick net   sudo tee -a  etc hosts    configure eth4 to come up on boot  set IP and netmask  centos 6 4  echo -e  ONBOOT   YES   nIPADDR 10 42 84 168 nPREFIX 24    sudo tee -a  etc sysconfig network-scripts ifcfg-eth4   In each of these examples you are taking the output of a non-privileged command and writing to a file that is usually only writable by root  which is the origin of your question   It is a good idea to do it this way because the command that generates the output is not executed with elevated privileges   It doesn t seem to matter here with echo but when the source command is a script that you don t completely trust  it is crucial   Note you can use the -a option to tee to append append  like  gt  gt   to the target file rather than overwrite it  like  gt

User · Answer

The problem is that the command gets run under sudo  but the redirection gets run under your user  This is done by the shell and there is very little you can do about it   sudo command  gt   some file log  -----v-----  -------v-------     command       redirection   The usual ways of bypassing this are    Wrap the commands in a script which you call under sudo   If the commands and or log file changes  you can make the  script take these as arguments  For example   sudo log script command  log file txt  Call a shell and pass the command line as a parameter with -c  This is especially useful for one off compound commands  For example   sudo bash -c    command1 arg  command2 arg     gt   log file txt

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

This is based on the answer involving tee  To make things easier I wrote a small script  I call it suwrite  and put it in  usr local bin  with  x permission       bin sh if        0     then     echo  USAGE   lt command writing to stdout gt    suwrite  -a   lt output file 1 gt        gt  amp 2     exit 1 fi for arg in        do     if     arg  dev        arg      then         echo  Found dangerous argument     arg     Will exit           exit 2     fi done sudo tee       gt   dev null   As shown in the USAGE in the code  all you have to do is to pipe the output to this script followed by the desired superuser-accessible filename and it will automatically prompt you for your password if needed  since it includes sudo    echo test   suwrite  root test txt   Note that since this is a simple wrapper for tee  it will also accept tee s -a option to append  and also supports writing to multiple files at the same time   echo test2   suwrite -a  root test txt echo test-multi   suwrite  root test-a txt  root test-b txt   It also has some simplistic protection against writing to  dev  devices which was a concern mentioned in one of the comments on this page

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Clarifying a bit on why the tee option is preferable  Assuming you have appropriate permission to execute the command that creates the output  if you pipe the output of your command to tee  you only need to elevate tee s privledges with sudo and direct tee to write  or append  to the file in question   in the example given in the question that would mean   ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out   for a couple more practical examples     kill off one source of annoying advertisements echo 127 0 0 1 ad doubleclick net   sudo tee -a  etc hosts    configure eth4 to come up on boot  set IP and netmask  centos 6 4  echo -e  ONBOOT   YES   nIPADDR 10 42 84 168 nPREFIX 24    sudo tee -a  etc sysconfig network-scripts ifcfg-eth4   In each of these examples you are taking the output of a non-privileged command and writing to a file that is usually only writable by root  which is the origin of your question   It is a good idea to do it this way because the command that generates the output is not executed with elevated privileges   It doesn t seem to matter here with echo but when the source command is a script that you don t completely trust  it is crucial   Note you can use the -a option to tee to append append  like  gt  gt   to the target file rather than overwrite it  like  gt

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

I would do it this way   sudo su -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out

User · Answer

The problem is that the command gets run under sudo  but the redirection gets run under your user  This is done by the shell and there is very little you can do about it   sudo command  gt   some file log  -----v-----  -------v-------     command       redirection   The usual ways of bypassing this are    Wrap the commands in a script which you call under sudo   If the commands and or log file changes  you can make the  script take these as arguments  For example   sudo log script command  log file txt  Call a shell and pass the command line as a parameter with -c  This is especially useful for one off compound commands  For example   sudo bash -c    command1 arg  command2 arg     gt   log file txt

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

The way I would go about this issue is   If you need to write replace the file   echo  some text    sudo tee  path to file   If you need to append to the file   echo  some text    sudo tee -a  path to file

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

User · Answer

sudo at now   at gt  echo test  gt   tmp test out   at gt   lt EOT gt    job 1 at Thu Sep 21 10 49 00 2017

User · Answer

I would do it this way   sudo su -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out

User · Answer

The way I would go about this issue is   If you need to write replace the file   echo  some text    sudo tee  path to file   If you need to append to the file   echo  some text    sudo tee -a  path to file

User · Answer

Clarifying a bit on why the tee option is preferable  Assuming you have appropriate permission to execute the command that creates the output  if you pipe the output of your command to tee  you only need to elevate tee s privledges with sudo and direct tee to write  or append  to the file in question   in the example given in the question that would mean   ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out   for a couple more practical examples     kill off one source of annoying advertisements echo 127 0 0 1 ad doubleclick net   sudo tee -a  etc hosts    configure eth4 to come up on boot  set IP and netmask  centos 6 4  echo -e  ONBOOT   YES   nIPADDR 10 42 84 168 nPREFIX 24    sudo tee -a  etc sysconfig network-scripts ifcfg-eth4   In each of these examples you are taking the output of a non-privileged command and writing to a file that is usually only writable by root  which is the origin of your question   It is a good idea to do it this way because the command that generates the output is not executed with elevated privileges   It doesn t seem to matter here with echo but when the source command is a script that you don t completely trust  it is crucial   Note you can use the -a option to tee to append append  like  gt  gt   to the target file rather than overwrite it  like  gt

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

I would do it this way   sudo su -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out

User · Answer

Your command does not work because the redirection is performed by your shell which does not have the permission to write to  root test out  The redirection of the output is not performed by sudo   There are multiple solutions    Run a shell with sudo and give the command to it by using the -c option   sudo sh -c  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Create a script with your commands and run that script with sudo      bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   Run sudo ls sh  See Steve Bennett s answer if you don t want to create a temporary file  Launch a shell with sudo -s then run your commands    nobody so   sudo -s  root so   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out  root so    D  nobody so    Use sudo tee  if you have to escape a lot when using the -c option    sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   The redirect to  dev null is needed to stop tee from outputting to the screen  To append instead of overwriting the output file    gt  gt    use tee -a or tee --append  the last one is specific to GNU coreutils     Thanks go to Jd  Adam J  Forster and Johnathan for the second  third and fourth solutions

User · Answer

Make sudo run a shell  like this   sudo sh -c  echo foo  gt   root out

User · Answer

Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

User · Answer

sudo at now   at gt  echo test  gt   tmp test out   at gt   lt EOT gt    job 1 at Thu Sep 21 10 49 00 2017

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

User · Answer

Yet another variation on the theme   sudo bash  lt  lt EOF ls -hal  root   gt   root test out EOF   Or of course   echo  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    sudo bash   They have the  tiny  advantage that you don t need to remember any arguments to sudo or sh bash

User · Answer

Maybe you been given sudo access to only some programs paths  Then there is no way to do what you want   unless you will hack it somehow   If it is not the case then maybe you can write bash script   cat  gt  myscript sh    bin sh ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    Press ctrl   d    chmod a x myscript sh sudo myscript sh   Hope it help

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sudo at now   at gt  echo test  gt   tmp test out   at gt   lt EOT gt    job 1 at Thu Sep 21 10 49 00 2017

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Yet another variation on the theme   sudo bash  lt  lt EOF ls -hal  root   gt   root test out EOF   Or of course   echo  ls -hal  root   gt   root test out    sudo bash   They have the  tiny  advantage that you don t need to remember any arguments to sudo or sh bash

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How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

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How about writing a script   Filename  myscript     bin sh   bin ls -lah  root  gt   root test out    end script   Then use sudo to run the script   sudo   myscript

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The way I would go about this issue is   If you need to write replace the file   echo  some text    sudo tee  path to file   If you need to append to the file   echo  some text    sudo tee -a  path to file

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Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

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Clarifying a bit on why the tee option is preferable  Assuming you have appropriate permission to execute the command that creates the output  if you pipe the output of your command to tee  you only need to elevate tee s privledges with sudo and direct tee to write  or append  to the file in question   in the example given in the question that would mean   ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out   for a couple more practical examples     kill off one source of annoying advertisements echo 127 0 0 1 ad doubleclick net   sudo tee -a  etc hosts    configure eth4 to come up on boot  set IP and netmask  centos 6 4  echo -e  ONBOOT   YES   nIPADDR 10 42 84 168 nPREFIX 24    sudo tee -a  etc sysconfig network-scripts ifcfg-eth4   In each of these examples you are taking the output of a non-privileged command and writing to a file that is usually only writable by root  which is the origin of your question   It is a good idea to do it this way because the command that generates the output is not executed with elevated privileges   It doesn t seem to matter here with echo but when the source command is a script that you don t completely trust  it is crucial   Note you can use the -a option to tee to append append  like  gt  gt   to the target file rather than overwrite it  like  gt

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A trick I figured out myself was  sudo ls -hal  root    sudo dd of  root test out

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This is based on the answer involving tee  To make things easier I wrote a small script  I call it suwrite  and put it in  usr local bin  with  x permission       bin sh if        0     then     echo  USAGE   lt command writing to stdout gt    suwrite  -a   lt output file 1 gt        gt  amp 2     exit 1 fi for arg in        do     if     arg  dev        arg      then         echo  Found dangerous argument     arg     Will exit           exit 2     fi done sudo tee       gt   dev null   As shown in the USAGE in the code  all you have to do is to pipe the output to this script followed by the desired superuser-accessible filename and it will automatically prompt you for your password if needed  since it includes sudo    echo test   suwrite  root test txt   Note that since this is a simple wrapper for tee  it will also accept tee s -a option to append  and also supports writing to multiple files at the same time   echo test2   suwrite -a  root test txt echo test-multi   suwrite  root test-a txt  root test-b txt   It also has some simplistic protection against writing to  dev  devices which was a concern mentioned in one of the comments on this page

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Someone here has just suggested sudoing tee   sudo ls -hal  root    sudo tee  root test out  gt   dev null   This could also be used to redirect any command  to a directory that you do not have access to  It works because the tee program is effectively an  echo to a file  program  and the redirect to  dev null is to stop it also outputting to the screen to keep it the same as the original contrived example above

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Whenever I have to do something like this I just become root     sudo -s   ls -hal  root   gt   root test out   exit   It s probably not the best way  but it works

[linux] How do I use sudo to redirect output to a location I don't have permission to write to?

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