su single command?

S

sentofuno

hi all, i'm new to FreeBSD and need something clarifying. i tried googling and the documentation but i'm still not quite sure on something

i am used to running commands in linux with elevated privileges like this:

Code: 
sudo command filename.ext

eg

Code: 
sudo edit textfile.txt


with FreeBSD i don't seem to be able to run single commands like that. i have added my account to the wheel group, and i can 'su' to the root environment from my account but trying to run:

Code: 
su pkg_add -r xorg

results in 'bad su, su sorry' etc.

if i understand it correctly 'su'-ing is inadvisable as it leaves me in a root user state, and as i read at http://www.manpages.info/freebsd/su.1.htmlhere can affect user variables, so i am making changes to the root account rather than my own

so is there a way to run single commands like in my example?

thanks in advance
 
If you're used to sudo, install sudo from ports (security/sudo). You normally don't run 'su' in a command, but as a way to get to the root shell ($ su [enter], password, or $ su -, [enter], password) and perform commands there.
 
to use su, you need to use quote for it's argument, that you want to execute, if it has parameteres
for example, I run
$ su -m root -c mksh
or
$ su -m root -c 'portsnap fetch update'
 
killasmurf86, worked perfectly - thank you.

thanks to everyone else who replied, i have installed sudo for later but will use killasmurf86's suggestion for now. i've been using FreeBSD for less than 10 hours now (aside from some use of pfSense and m0n0wall) and to begin with i would like to do things the 'FreeBSD' or 'native' way.



the whole point of my trying FreeBSD was to understand and choose every command i run, and program i open. so far i'm very impressed. i have only installed x11 for a GUI but its enough to launch GUI apps like firefox, thunderbird etc from xterm windows. the mix of CLI and GUI suits me very well.
 
I'm also new and ran up against the same "problem", but since there are all these "terminals" available, I found that just leaving the one I'm in and logging in as root on another one works really well.
 
OJ said:
Boy, you really want me to try those eh? OK, I'll get tmux right away and see how that goes. :)
Click to expand...

you may wanna try my ~/.tmux.conf
Code: 
set-option -g prefix C-b
set-option -g default-path $HOME
set-option -g set-titles on
set-option -g status-keys vi

set-window-option -g utf8 on

bind-key C-s choose-session
bind-key C-w choose-window
bind-key C-k kill-session
 
Thanks, I loaded that. However, there's a bit of a learning curve here, and I'm a bit slow. :) I see that the Ctrl-Alt-Fx still works. That means I can have terminals running in two dimensions. I like that. That's what I do with my windows in KDE instead of that stupid minimize thing that Microsoft people do. Anyway, I'll be working on the tmux for a while, but it's looking good!
 
The benefit of using tmux is that you can start tmux on a local console, open a bunch of virtual screens inside tmux (CTRL+B,C to create, CTRL+B,N to switch to the next one, CTRL+B,P to switch to previous one), then detach the tmux sessions (CTRL+B,D) and logout of the box. Later, you can SSH into the box, and run tmux attach and have it reconnect to the running tmux session, with all your screens loaded and your apps running.

Where it gets even better is if you connect via SSH initially, and start tmux, and do everything in there. If your SSH connection dies for whatever reason, none of your running apps or sessions are interrupted. Just reconnect via SSH, and attach to the running tmux session.

Once you start using tmux, especially via SSH, you'll find it very hard to work on a system without it. :)
 
It even supports multiple simultaneous connections to the same tmux session. I often leave tmux running on my work computer, and connect to it from home, and it's still running in Konsole when I get back to work. No detach required.
 
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