How to enable the use of NSTask - objective-c

Question

I need to basically execute "sudo", but I need to provide this permission for my NSTask code. Is it possible?

Thanks, Elijah

Answer 1

Look at here:

• http://www.sveinbjorn.org/STPrivilegedTask
• http://www.sheepsystems.com/sourceCode/authTasksCocoa.html

HTH :-)

Answer 2

If you are looking for an easier solution, I wrote this general implementation, which should achieve what you want:

- (BOOL) runProcessAsAdministrator:(NSString*)scriptPath withArguments:(NSArray *)arguments output:(NSString **)output errorDescription:(NSString **)errorDescription { NSString * allArgs = [arguments componentsJoinedByString:@" "]; NSString * fullScript = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"'%@' %@", scriptPath, allArgs]; NSDictionary *errorInfo = [NSDictionary new]; NSString *script = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"do shell script \"%@\" with administrator privileges", fullScript]; NSAppleScript *appleScript = [[NSAppleScript new] initWithSource:script]; NSAppleEventDescriptor * eventResult = [appleScript executeAndReturnError:&errorInfo]; // Check errorInfo if (! eventResult) { // Describe common errors *errorDescription = nil; if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber]) { NSNumber * errorNumber = (NSNumber *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorNumber]; if ([errorNumber intValue] == -128) *errorDescription = @"The administrator password is required to do this."; } // Set error message from provided message if (*errorDescription == nil) { if ([errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage]) *errorDescription = (NSString *)[errorInfo valueForKey:NSAppleScriptErrorMessage]; } return NO; } else { // Set output to the AppleScript output *output = [eventResult stringValue]; return YES; } } 

Usage example:

  NSString * output = nil; NSString * processErrorDescription = nil; BOOL success = [self runProcessAsAdministrator:@"/usr/bin/id" withArguments:[NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"-un", nil] output:&output errorDescription:&processErrorDescription]; if (!success) // Process failed to run { // ...look at errorDescription } else { // ...process output } 

This is very slightly hacked, but IMHO is a satisfactory solution. Thanks for opening this SO question .

Answer 3

Some related information is provided in the article “Communication with a privileged tool”

See also: http://osx.hyperjeff.net/Reference/CocoaArticles?cat=29