Can I give a script elevated file access and run it from my current user?

Question

I have a script (I call it dusort.sh) I use to gauge which files are taking up the most space on my drive in a given folder. It essentially boils down to this:

#!/bin/bash

du --all --human-readable --max-depth=1 $1 | sort -h -r

I need to run the command with sudo because otherwise du cannot read certain directories (/, docker volume directories, etc). Is there a way to make it so I can run this command without being prompted for my root user password every time I want to check file sizes?

I have tried changing the file ownership

sudo chown root:root dusort.sh

but that doesnt seem to affect things. The only way to run this command without getting Permission denied warnings on files is like so:

sudo ./dusort.sh

Answer 1

Woo! Ok I've got a working solution prompted by lx07. To get the solution I want, which is running a script with root permissions without typing sudo or inputting a password each time, there are two steps.

First, add these two lines to your /etc/sudoers file (edit with sudo visudo)

myusername ALL = (ALL) ALL
myusername ALL = (root) NOPASSWD: /path/to/myscript.sh

Second, add an alias to script.sh prefixed with sudo. In my case, I added it to ~/.bash_aliases

alias myscript='sudo /path/to/myscript.sh'

now you can run the script as root without specifying sudo or giving a password!

$ myscript
# it runs as root!

Answer 2

You can change the /etc/sudoers file and append the following lines:

Cmnd_Alias     MONITORING=/usr/bin/du  
your_username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:MONITORING

if you are not the only one that will use the scripts, create a group containting whe users and replace the last line for: %group_name ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD:MONITORING

This way you won't be required for a password every time you execute the script

If you already have sudo powers just append the sudo in you script:

sudo du --all --human-readable --max-depth=1 $1 | sort -h -r