Question

I am trying to write a script that appends a line to the /etc/hosts, which means I need sudoer privileges. However, if I run the script from the desktop it does not prompt for a password. I simply get permission denied.

Example script:

#!/bin/bash
sudo echo '131.253.13.32        www.google.com' >> /etc/hosts
dscacheutil -flushcache

A terminal pops up and says permission denied, but never actually prompts for the sudo password. Is there a way to fix this?

Answer 1

sudo doesn’t apply to the redirection operator. You can use either echo | sudo tee -a or sudo bash -c 'echo >>':

echo 131.253.13.32 www.google.com | sudo tee -a /etc/hosts
sudo bash -c 'echo 131.253.13.32 www.google.com >> /etc/hosts'