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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-21T02:14:07+00:00

I am trying to execute sudo -su db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force application (1995) but I

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I am trying to execute

sudo -su db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force application (1995)

but I get this error:

bash: syntax error near unexpected token `(‘

However,

sudo -su db2inst1 id

gives me correct output. So it must be something about the ()

If I try

sudo -su db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force application \(1995\)

I get

/bin/bash: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token (' \ /bin/bash: -c: line 0: /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force application (1995)’

Running /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force application (1995) as db2inst1 user gives me the same error, but running

/opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 "force application (1995)"

works fine

The right syntax is

sudo -su db2inst1 '/opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 "force application (1995)"'
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    NOTE: While this answer seems to have been correct at the time [sudo was changed later that same year to add extra escaping around characters in the arguments with -i and -s], it is not correct for modern versions of sudo, which escape all special characters when constructing the command line to be passed to $SHELL -c. Always be careful and make sure you know what passing a command to your particular version of sudo will do, and consider carefully whether the -s option is really needed for your command and/or, if it would, if you’d be better served with sudo sh -c.

    Since you’ve got both the shell that you’re typing into and the shell that sudo -s runs, you need to quote or escape twice. Any of the following three would have worked with this now-ancient version of sudo:

    sudo -su db2inst1 '/opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 "force application (1995)"'
sudo -su db2inst1 '/opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force\ application\ \(1995\)'
sudo -su db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force\\ application\\ \\\(1995\\\)

    Out of curiosity, why do you need -s? Can’t you just do the following?

    sudo -u db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 'force application (1995)'
sudo -u db2inst1 /opt/ibm/db2/V9.7/bin/db2 force\ application\ \(1995\)
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