.shell command "su" loses interaction

[FrancoAguilera]

I could login as root on a ssh connection like this :

    conn.on('ready', () => {
      conn.exec('su', { pty: true }, (err, stream) => { // root command
        if (err) throw err;
        
        stream.write('rootPassword\n'); // enter root password

        stream.on('close', (code, signal) => {
          console.log('Stream :: close :: code: ' + code + ', signal: ' + signal);
          conn.end();
        }).on('data', (data) => {
          console.log('STDOUT: ' + data.toString('utf8')); // STDOUT: bash-4.1#  (login successful)
        }).stderr.on('data', (data) => {
          console.log('STDERR: ' + data);
        });
      });
    }).connect({
      host: '192.168.100.100',
      username: 'admin',
      password: 'password'
    });

but... how should I perform a second command (e.g. :$ touch /media/test_file.txt') once I'm on my root session, after the login is successful ?.

[mscdex]

Why not prefix your commands with 'sudo'?

[FrancoAguilera]

I been asking for an assignment in which I have to login as a root user instead of running commands with sudo due to that some commands it might take long to perform, but despite that, is this the correct path to perform what I'm aiming for ?, I mean... it is possible to execute command in a procedural way
[this is just a silly example just to show what I'm looking for), e.g.

1. login as root
2. create a file (let's say 'touch /media/empty_test_file.txt')
3. compress that file
4. delete the uncompressed one
5. exit root session

[FrancoAguilera]

Update

I've managed to perform the "several commands" part in a more clean and readable way I think, (I know there are streams errors and end missing, but this is only for practical purposes).
As you can see on the commands array, there is a "su" command, but when that command it's fired in the stream nothing seems to happen, it's like if there where nothing there, do you know why the "su" command don't asks for his password and activates a "session" lets say ?.

    const Client = require('ssh2').Client;
    const conn = new Client();

    const encode = 'utf8';
    const commands = [
      'ls -a',
      'su',
      'rootP455word',
      'uptime',
      'cd /tmp && ls'
    ];

    conn.on('ready', () => {
      conn.shell(false, { pty: true }, (err, stream) => {
        if (err) { console.log(err) }

        stream.on('data', (data) => {
          process.stdout.write(data.toString(encode));
        });

        commands.forEach((cmd) => {
          stream.write(`${cmd}\n`);
        });
      });
    })
    .connect({
      host: "192.168.100.100",
      username: "username",
      password: "usernamePassword"
    });

[andrewgremlich]

Seems to work fairly well what you did! I came across a similar issue where the .exec command wouldn't su me in. I used your idea. Thanks!

[FrancoAguilera]

thanks to you @andrewgremlich and your reply, here also I made a workaround to perform the root change without loosing the interaction and executing some commands. stack overflow

[andrewgremlich]

@FrancoAguilera thats a good post you shared! I didn't need to use it because my su command in this case isn't linked with a password, so all I needed was to just execute the su command.

[andrewgremlich]

@FrancoAguilera per circumstance, do you know how to close the session?

[mscdex]

You could .write('exit\n') or .end() on the interactive session stream object.

[andrewgremlich]

@mscdex thanks dude! I tried doing that, but it wouldn't work where I put it.

So what I ended up doing is calling .end() inside the callback of the .on('data') and seeing of the returned data (with trim) is equal to the last command of the array of commands.

It worked then! Here is what I got...

conn.on('ready', () => {                                                     
    conn.shell(false, { pty: true }, (err, stream) => {                      
                                                                             
        if (err) throw err                                                   
                                                                             
        stream                                                               
            .on('data', data => {                                            
                global.logger.write(data.toString('utf8'))                   
                                                                             
                if (data.toString('utf8').trim() === 'Move Files complete') {
                    console.log("OVER!")                                     
                    stream.end('exit \n')                                    
                }                                                            
            })                                                               
            .on('close', () => {                                             
                global.logger.write('Connetion is closing')                  
                conn.end()                                                   
            })                                                               
                                                                             
        commands.forEach(cmd => {                                            
            stream.write(`${cmd}\n`)                                         
            iter++                                                           
        })                                                                   
    })                                                                       
})