Add sudo support without an external terminal

[jimbobbennett]

According to the docs, it is possible to debug as sudo using an external terminal for the password input.

This doesn't work when debugging remotely, for that you need the integrated terminal and therefore can't sudo.

A use case for this is Raspberry Pi development - connecting remotely and needing to run as sudo to control certain hardware.

[int19h]

If "sudo":true is specified in launch.json, we basically just prepend sudo to the command line. So long as there is any terminal at all - whether it's "console":"externalTerminal" or "integratedTerminal" - that's where sudo runs, and where password can be entered. Is there something going wrong with that?

For "console":"internalConsole" there is indeed no terminal to input the password from - the reason why we still allow "sudo" in this case is because it can be configured to skip the password prompt altogether.

[jimbobbennett]

I've tried it with integratedTerminal and I get an error:

pi@raspberrypi:~/LightPi/app $  env DEBUGPY_LAUNCHER_PORT=36067 /usr/bin/python3 /home/pi/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-2020.3.69010/pythonFiles/lib/python/debugpy/wheels/debugpy/launcher /home/pi/LightPi/app/.vscode/launch.json 
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 193, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", mod_spec)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/home/pi/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-2020.3.69010/pythonFiles/lib/python/debugpy/wheels/debugpy/__main__.py", line 45, in <module>
    cli.main()
  File "/home/pi/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-2020.3.69010/pythonFiles/lib/python/debugpy/wheels/debugpy/../debugpy/server/cli.py", line 427, in main
    run()
  File "/home/pi/.vscode-server/extensions/ms-python.python-2020.3.69010/pythonFiles/lib/python/debugpy/wheels/debugpy/../debugpy/server/cli.py", line 264, in run_file
    runpy.run_path(options.target, run_name="__main__")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 261, in run_path
    code, fname = _get_code_from_file(run_name, path_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.7/runpy.py", line 236, in _get_code_from_file
    code = compile(f.read(), fname, 'exec')
  File "/home/pi/LightPi/app/.vscode/launch.json", line 2
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
     ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

My launch.json is:

{
    // Use IntelliSense to learn about possible attributes.
    // Hover to view descriptions of existing attributes.
    // For more information, visit: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=830387
    "version": "0.2.0",
    "configurations": [
        {
            "name": "Python: Current File",
            "type": "python",
            "request": "launch",
            "program": "${file}",
            "console": "integratedTerminal",
            "sudo": true            
        }
    ]
}

Just as a sanity check I used intellisense and that indicates sudo is valid. Removing the "sudo" : true line and it all works, running under the debugger, just not as sudo.

If I remove the comments that it's complaining about, it throws an exception, breaking on the sudo line in the launch.json:

    "sudo": true
NameError: name 'true' is not defined

If I use "true" as a string value, it gives me an error that it needs a boolean.

[int19h]

Your launch.json is set to start "${file}", i.e. the file you currently have open in the editor. So when you have launch.json open, it tries to start it as if it were a Python script - all the errors that you're seeing come from Python itself trying to run it. Note the last argument in the command line in the terminal:

pi@raspberrypi:~/LightPi/app $ ... /usr/bin/python3 ... /home/pi/LightPi/app/.vscode/launch.json 

[jimbobbennett]

Apologies for wasting folks time with such an obvious mistake on my part. I shall now hide away in embarrassment.

Thanks @int19h!

[int19h]

No worries, it happens - we all do it every now and then!

[BitCalSaul]

If "sudo":true is specified in launch.json, we basically just prepend sudo to the command line. So long as there is any terminal at all - whether it's "console":"externalTerminal" or "integratedTerminal" - that's where sudo runs, and where password can be entered. Is there something going wrong with that?

For "console":"internalConsole" there is indeed no terminal to input the password from - the reason why we still allow "sudo" in this case is because it can be configured to skip the password prompt altogether.

Could we configure the password in the launch.json?