Run root command using java.lang.ProcessBuilder

Question

Using java.lang.ProcessBuilder on a Java application running on a Linux machine (Ubuntu 18.04 specifically), what can be done such that the command executed would be able to run and not throw Permission Denied.

Here's the code:

boolean isWindows = System.getProperty("os.name")
                    .toLowerCase().startsWith("windows");
            ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder();
            if (isWindows) {
                builder.directory(new File(System.getProperty("user.home")));
                builder.command("cmd.exe", "/c", command);
            } else {
                builder.directory(new File(System.getenv("HOME")));
                builder.command("sh", "-c", command);
            }
            Process process = builder.start();

Does the user that is running your java process has the proper permissions to run that command (and access the expected folders) or do you want to use a different user for these commands? — second
– second, Commented May 23, 2019 at 23:05

El-MAHMOUDI · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-24 00:36:07Z

Tested on Ubuntu 18.04:

import java.io.File;

    public class Application {

        public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception{
            boolean isWindows = System.getProperty("os.name")
                    .toLowerCase().startsWith("windows");
            ProcessBuilder builder = new ProcessBuilder();
            if (isWindows) {
                builder.directory(new File(System.getProperty("user.home")));
                builder.command("cmd.exe", "/c", "");
            } else {
                builder.directory(new File(System.getenv("HOME")));
                // i used the docker command as an example, because it needs a root access (default configuration of Docker)
                builder.command("/bin/bash", "-c", "sudo docker image ls > result.txt 2> errors.txt");
            }
            Process process = builder.start();
            // When running the command java Application in terminal, i noticed that when prompted to type the root password
            // the program exits so i decided to make the current thread sleep for 5 seconds, to give me time to type the password
            Thread.sleep(5000);
        }
    }

Hope that will be helpful :)

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