Extending SUDO timestamp in a BASH script

Question

There's a BASH script that might need more than 5 minutes to run a list of commands (majority are sudo)...What's the alternative?

Some say...

Use sudo -v

seems like a good option, although, after reading Apple's sudo(8) Man Page , it was said...

If given the -v (validate) option, sudo will update the user's time stamp, prompting for the user's password if necessary. This extends the sudo timeout for another 5 minutes (or whatever the timeout is set to in sudoers) but does not run a command.

I'm concerned with prompting for the user's password if necessary . What do they mean "if necessary"?

If I have sudo -v in a bash script that, let's say, executes roughly 4 minutes since the last time sudo was used (1 minute left on timestamp). Thus, giving us another 5 minutes to the timestamp - Right?

As for the other option, someone mentioned to use a loop command for updating a timestamp.

while true; do sudo -n true; sleep 60; kill -0 "$$" || exit; done 2>/dev/null &

Can the above code work?

Answer 1

I might be late to answering my own question, I did however, found a solution.

replace userpassword with your password :

 echo "userpassword" | sudo -S -v

Use variable :

echo "$var" | sudo -S -v  

or

If you exceed 5 minutes, use The while loop :

while true; do sudo -v; sleep 300; kill -0 "$$" || exit; done 2>/dev/null &

Answer 2

Use the following:

sudo -nv

• -n non-interactive
• -v attempt to refresh privileges

This command will output nothing if sudo rights are still available for the current context. If they are not available the command will output:

$ sudo -nv
sudo: a password is required

This way it will not ask and you can build your script around these output conditions.