If this is possible, what is the right combination of settings to use to connect via private key, but then work as sudo su - user?

[MostHated]

Hey there, I am trying to determine what are right combination of settings to use to connect via private key, but then work as sudo su - user? When access the system manually, I just connect with the key, then enter sudo su - user and go on about my business, but I have not been able to get that type of thing working with the plugin. Is this possible, or am I going in circles for no reason?

Thanks, -MH

[SchoofsKelvin]

It's not easy, but it's possible:

• To access the file system as another user:
  • Set SFTP Sudo to <Default> (uses sudo <command>) or a username (uses sudo -u <username> <command>)
  • Enabling SFTP Sudo will automatically set SFTP Command to /usr/lib/openssh/sftp-server if it isn't set
  • You can overwrite SFTP Sudo to change the location of sftp-server if it isn't in that default location
  • When SFTP Sudo is active, the extension tries to detect `
• To run the terminal as another user:
  • The Terminal command defaults to $SHELL, but your sudo su - user might work too
  • You probably want to use su -p -c "cdpwd; $SHELL" to keep the environment (-p) and working directory
• To run tasks as another user:
  • In the settings UI, change Task command in a similar way
  • Of course, you can change your task command to perform a sudo itself

There's a special edge case that makes it that if SFTP Command starts with sudo, it'll strip the sudo part, e.g. sudo -u user command arg1 becomes command arg1, as the extension tries to auto-detect a potential [sudo] password for user: prompt and auto-answer it with the stored password or prompt you with one, since the SFTP "terminal" isn't visible and doesn't support user interaction. That might interfere with your sudo su, although just prefixing it with a space should make the extension ignore that special procedure.

You might be better off just configuring the extension to login as your target user. You can add the same key to the .ssh/authorized_keys of your target user in case you don't want to have a separate key. You can also use the SSH FS: Open remote SSH terminal or SSH FS: Add as Workspace folder command, select Create instant connection and enter user@configname to connect using an existing config configname but login as user instead, in case all this is just for not having extra configs. And ssh://user@configname/ is a valid URI for e.g. as a workspace folder, that works across restarts.

---

After a bit of experimenting, this Terminal command seemed to work:

# When the authenticated user has (Ba)sh as login shell
su test-user -lP -c "cd `pwd`;"'$SHELL'
# When the authenticated user has Fish as login shell
su test-user -lP -c "cd "(pwd)";"'$SHELL'

Few notes:

• The command in Terminal command will be run in the login shell of the same user as the Username field
• The -l option is to start a login shell, which would reset the working directory, hence the cd bit
• The -P option is to start a pseud-terminal, otherwise most shells won't actually properly work (since they require a TTY)
• Since it's a login shell, environment variables are reset, including $SHELL being the new user's login shell (which I run)
• If you want to keep some environment variables:
  • Replace -l with -w VAR1,VAR2,...
  • You can use p if you replace $SHELL with a hardcoded value instead of getting it from the login shell's environment
  • This technically wouldn't be a login shell anymore, if it matters. Some shells support -l though, e.g. bash -l

[rdsanchezdu]

Hey there, I am trying to determine what are right combination of settings to use to connect via private key, but then work as sudo su - user? When access the system manually, I just connect with the key, then enter sudo su - user and go on about my business, but I have not been able to get that type of thing working with the plugin. Is this possible, or am I going in circles for no reason?

Thanks, -MH

Hi @MostHated did you find any solution? I can't really understand how to config the extension