How do I run commands as root from Rails?

Question

I'm thinking about writing a Rails application to manage servers like cPanel.

The hardest part is to select the best way to run commands that require root privileges, like adduser, or doing things that require another user's privileges, like changing nginx config files.

I know only two ways to achieve this:

1. I can write a standalone daemon that will be run as root and do all the work, receiving commands through IPC or something like this.
2. Run Rail's server as the root user, and do anything from it or execute commands/bash scripts from it.

Which of these ways are best? Does there exist another way to to this?

Answer 1

sudo -i

I tried doing things like sudo bundle exec rails console but it wouldn't quite run it as root so when I tried to create a directory from the console it let me know that I did not have the correct permissions.

However, using sudo -i it enters you into an "interactive console" as the sudo root user and then you can run bundle exec rails console as the sudo root user.

Hopes that helps others.