Getting admin password while copy file using shutil.copy?

Question

I m using shutil.copy from python to copy a list of files. But when i copy the files to /usr/lib/ location, i m getting permission denied as i need to be an administrator to do that.

So How could i copy files with admin permission or how could i get the admin password from the user to copy the files?

Ideas would be appreciated

Answer 1

Make the user run the script as an administrator:

sudo python-script.py

Unix already has authentication and password management. You don't need to write your own, and there will doubtless be security bugs if you try.

Answer 2

To add to what katrielalex said: you can make the script run itself via sudo if you want. Here's a proof of concept:

import sys, os, subprocess

def do_root_stuff():
    print('Trying to list /root:')
    for filename in os.listdir('/root'):
        print(filename)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    print('Running as UID %d:' % os.geteuid())

    if os.geteuid() == 0:
        do_root_stuff()
    else:
        subprocess.check_call(['sudo', sys.executable] + sys.argv)

Answer 3

Start your program with a user that is allowed to write there. For example login to root first (su) or run the script with sudo myscript.py.