[X-Unix] ssh sudo password in clear text

[Eric F Crist]

On Jun 10, 2007, at 4:50 PMJun 10, 2007, Paul Hess wrote:
>> echo "password" | ssh someserver.com sudo mailstuff/sa-learn.sh
>
> Hi Eric,
>
> Here's the rub that brings me back to square one (unless I  
> misunderstand the piping).
>
> If I use the command above, wouldn't the password be sent to "ssh"  
> rather than sent to the "sudo" command?  I think I somehow need to  
> put echo "password" into the command line after ssh to be piped to  
> sudo but I don't understand the syntax to do that.  I believe it  
> has to do with single quotes but I can't find a way to get it right.

Paul,

The echo "password"  portion of the command gets piped into the  
entirety of ssh someserver.com sudo mailstuff/sa-learn.sh.  In this  
case, the sudo ... is what reads that input from stdin.

To help you understand:

foo | bar

In the above example, foo is seen as input on stdin from bar('s)  
perspective.  Try the command I sent you, it should work just fine.   
I tested it on my systems here, an OS X client connecting to a  
FreeBSD 6.x server, and things went swimmingly.  If the command  
*does*, for some reason, fail, add a -S (hyphen upper S) after sudo  
and before mailstuff/sa-learn.sh.  This option tells sudo to accept  
the password from stdin rather than a device (read tty).

Give it a try and tell me how it goes.

HTH

*For the record, I don't sit at home on a Sunday waiting for X-Unix  
email, I, (un)fortunately have the benefit of a [Cr|Bl]ackberry that  
summons me in the middle of my honey-do list... ;)
-----
Eric F Crist
Secure Computing Networks