MySQL Issues

[Karl Auer]

On Tue, 2017-01-24 at 09:33 -0600, Dr. Mikeal Hughes wrote:
> Ok here is one for you. I tried to enter the command sudo cd /root so
> I could go in and check the my.cnf file so I could see how my login
> information for MySQL is set. When I do I get Permission denied. I
> was asked for my sudo password put it in. 

Good one :-)

Sudo creates a new shell with a new environment, executes your command
in that new shell, then leaves the shell, drops root privileges and
returns you to your previous shell and your previous environment. So
after a sudo command you are back where you started.

With "cd" in particular though, it won't would work at all. You should
get "command not found", because cd is an internal shell command, not
an actual program that sudo can load and execute. I don't think it
worked for you, and suspect you missed that error message.

To use cd in sudo you would have to tell sudo explicitly to start a
shell with that command, i.e., use "sudo -i cd /root" or "sudo -s cd
/root". But because of the whole "new shell" thing, neither of those
would have the desired effect of leaving you in the specified
directory.

In short "sudo cd /root" won't work.

One solution is to become root for a while with "sudo - bash", being
very careful with your subsequent commands and remembering to exit
afterwards.

The other solution is to use sudo and specify /root in each desired
command. For example, if you wanted to list the files in /root you
would use "sudo ls /root".

If you need to do a lot of stuff in the /root directory, or if they are
destructive commands like rm, I'd recommend the former, in a separate
terminal window, with emphasis on the "be careful" part. If it's just
one or two commands or they are simple things like ls, I'd recommend
using sudo.

Regards, K.

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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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