Running script with super user permission

Question

I need to create a script to modify some data, which would require super user permission. Is there any way to automate this process via shell script on Mac 10?

Sample Script:

sed s/Hello/World/g /usr/local/opt/test.xml 

To run this script, the user needs super user permission, is there any way to provide root credentials in the script and execute?

Answer 1

You can change the permissions on the shell script file to automatically make it run as root.

From the chmod manpage:

4000    (the set-user-ID-on-execution bit) Executable files with
        this bit set will run with effective uid set to the uid of
        the file owner.  Directories with the set-user-id bit set
        will force all files and sub-directories created in them to
        be owned by the directory owner and not by the uid of the
        creating process, if the underlying file system supports
        this feature: see chmod(2) and the suiddir option to
        mount(8).

A sample command might look like:

sudo chown root:root file.sh
sudo chmod 4755 file.sh