bash scripting advice?

H_TeXMeX_H · 01-12-2007, 10:20 PM

If I understood this correctly, '$tor_user' is used by tor to run itself for that user.

To change this variable (assuming it isn't readonly, and there is no reason it should be):

Code:

export tor_user=user_name_goes_here

So if your user name was bob:

Code:

export tor_user=bob

WilliamS · 01-12-2007, 11:26 PM

I tried that, and other variations I can think of either stop it from working or make no difference, still being run as root.
Don't see why username should make any difference, as long as it IS a valid user.

It does run the app, so it must be a valid username, seems the problem of root instead of user is elsewhere.

blackhole54 · 01-13-2007, 03:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilliamS

I think the problem is here " $tor_user (you need to define it in your script) refers to the user you want to run tor."
I've created a new user, but how do I define it in the script? Just writing $user1 in place of $tor_user didn't do it.

You don't even need to export it. Using the above example, somewhere near the top of your script just put:

tor_user=bob

With my perverse sense of humor, I created a user called onion. In that case you would say:

tor_user=onion

Without such a definition, the su command just changed to another login of root which is why you got that warning. BTW, if you test the script manually, make sure you invoke it while you are root.

EDIT: The above assumes you leave the command as I wrote it. If you want to put the user's name in that line, you don't need commands like the above, but you also should not put a dollar sign in front of the user's name. The dollar sign tells bash that you are referring to a variable.

blackhole54 · 01-13-2007, 03:35 AM

Sorry, I didn't see your last post when I posted #18 ...

Quote:

Originally Posted by WilliamS

I tried that, and other variations I can think of either stop it from working or make no difference, still being run as root.
Don't see why username should make any difference, as long as it IS a valid user.

It does run the app, so it must be a valid username, seems the problem of root instead of user is elsewhere.

You are putting a dollar sign in front of the user's name? If so, bash will interpret the user's name as a variable, which you have not defined. This has the effect of leaving it out entirely! W/o a username supplied, su's behavior is to use root. I hope this is clear.

WilliamS · 01-13-2007, 11:09 AM

Aha!
Deleted the $ and all is well. The current line is:

Code:

su - wilhelm -c "killall tor  &> /dev/null && sleep 2;  /usr/local/bin/tor &> /home/william/jk  &"

Thanks again, blackhole54.

blackhole54 · 01-13-2007, 11:53 PM

Glad it worked out.

FYI, if you would prefer to log to the system log instead of your private file, you can put the line

Log notice syslog

in /usr/local/etc/tor/torrc. If you are modifying torrc.sample, I think you can just uncomment a line for this. (The last time I looked at the sample file was several versions ago.)

WilliamS · 01-14-2007, 08:08 AM

Yes, still the same. Uncomment would be all needed, however the file I made gets erased and re-written every connect, so no problem and syslog is already cluttered with boot messages and mysterious stuff such as "Jan 14 07:35:43 host pppd[3185]: Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP
Jan 14 07:36:36 host pppd[3215]: Cannot determine ethernet address for proxy ARP"

This machine has no ethernet card. (Where's that head-scratching smilie?)