Simple mv as user

[ChuckFinley]

As a rookie question, I wondered how you'd either make a directory or move contents of old folder to another - as a user.   I know policies run as root but if I want it to do something in the users directory - how would I execute that?

Getting the user, I can do: curUser=$( stat -f%Su /dev/console )

If I want to run something like "mkdir foo" shouldn't it be something like:

su - "$curUser" -c 'mkdir "/Users/$curUser/foo"'

Although I try that as a policy for my own computer and it doesn't do anything.

The goal being to put the contents of one directory in another so their old data isn't overwritten 

[sdagley]

@ChuckFinley For everything you want to know about running a command as another user on macOS see https://scriptingosx.com/2020/08/running-a-command-as-another-user/

[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi @ChuckFinley ,

You do not need to use su. Instead you can run the command as mkdir "/Users/$curUser/foo"' and then ditto the content and use chown and chmod to set the permission.

#!/bin/bash

loggedInUser=$( scutil <<< "show State:/Users/ConsoleUser" | awk '/Name :/ && ! /loginwindow/ { print $3 }' )

mkdir /Users/$loggedInUser/foo
ditto <sourcepath> /Users/$loggedInUser/foo/

chown -R root:staff /Users/$loggedInUser/foo
chmod -r 700 /Users/$loggedInUser/foo/

exit 0

Thanks

[ChuckFinley]

THANKS!  I got the mkdir to work!

One more if I may?  Can you do a mv with a variable?

Like if I set

mypath="/Users/$loggedInUser/foo

mv $mypath /Users/Shared/foo2

That doesn't work, It just gives me:

usage: mv [-f | -i | -n] [-hv] source target

I tried variations with "$mypath" and "${mypath}" with no change

       mv [-f | -i | -n] [-v] source ... directory

[karthikeyan_mac]

Hi @ChuckFinley , If you want to merge the content and do no want to replace you can use ditto.

#!/bin/bash

loggedInUser=$( scutil <<< "show State:/Users/ConsoleUser" | awk '/Name :/ && ! /loginwindow/ { print $3 }' )

mkdir -p /Users/$loggedInUser/destination
ditto /Users/$loggedInUser/source /Users/$loggedInUser/destination

chown -R $loggedInUser:staff /Users/$loggedInUser/destination
chmod -R 700 /Users/$loggedInUser/destination

exit 0

mv command should work with variable as well. For ex:

#!/bin/bash

loggedInUser=$( scutil <<< "show State:/Users/ConsoleUser" | awk '/Name :/ && ! /loginwindow/ { print $3 }' )
 
mypath="/Users/$loggedInUser/foo"
mv $mypath /Users/Shared/foo2/

Thanks

[mschlosser]

like this:

#!/bin/sh

# template script for running a command as user

# The presumption is that this script will be executed as root from a launch daemon
# or from some management agent. To execute a single command as the current user
# you can use the `runAsUser` function below.

# by Armin Briegel - Scripting OS X
# 
# sample code for this blog post
# https://scriptingosx.com/2020/08/running-a-command-as-another-user/

# Permission is granted to use this code in any way you want.
# Credit would be nice, but not obligatory.
# Provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied.



# variable and function declarations

export PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin

# get the currently logged in user
currentUser=$( echo "show State:/Users/ConsoleUser" | scutil | awk '/Name :/ { print $3 }' )

# global check if there is a user logged in
if [ -z "$currentUser" -o "$currentUser" = "loginwindow" ]; then
  echo "no user logged in, cannot proceed"
  exit 1
fi
# now we know a user is logged in

# get the current user's UID
uid=$(id -u "$currentUser")

# convenience function to run a command as the current user
# usage:
#   runAsUser command arguments...
runAsUser() {  
  if [ "$currentUser" != "loginwindow" ]; then
    launchctl asuser "$uid" sudo -u "$currentUser" "$@"
  else
    echo "no user logged in"
    # uncomment the exit command
    # to make the function exit with an error when no user is logged in
    # exit 1
  fi
}


# main code starts here

runAsUser mv /path/to/directory/to/move /path/to/new/location

exit 0 

hope that helps.

M

[ChuckFinley]

Thanks.  I wanted to work out one more step with the mv as noted above.

I want to be able to define a variable and then use mv $variable /path/to/dest