virtualsue kicked around a problem that sounds a lot like this earlier this year in Running Perl program w/root privs via cron, which might contain some info useful to you as well.

Although it may not be quite what you're needing, in addition to the comments so far regarding the use of sudo, depending on the operations and environment there may also be the possibility you could use ssh public/private key pairs lacking passwords to do specific operations. Doing so would also have the advantage of not requiring your root password to reside in the scripts.

Hope all the comments help, and maybe let us know which solution worked out best for you and why, maybe.

the the instance i think i go for something like this (its not too pretty but works):

sub rootMeAndDoStuff(){
        my $rootID = getpwnam("root");
        if (not ($rootID eq $<)){
               print "U have to be root to do the following ...\n";
               system "su -c $PartToDoAsRoot";
        }
}
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but i am not very content with it since this wont work under win32. and sooner or later it has to.

update: there is in fact a way to do exactly the same under win32:

sub adminMe(){
        my $adminID = 0;
        if (not ($adminID eq $<)){
                print "U have to be an Administator to do this ...\n";
                print "Give me a name of a local Administator:\n";
                my $admin = <STDIN>;
                chomp $admin;
                my $hostname = hostname;
                system "runas /user:$hostname\\$admin 
                          \"cmd /K perl $whatToDoAsAdmin\"";
        }
}
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----
NaSe
:x

The Unix approach would be to just die if you are not root (if you are sure you need to be root!) and let the user call su or sudo himself (or the script that is calling your perlscript). You might like su, others don't. (If you are not sure, just go ahead and let the program die when it encounters missing privileges.)

Windows has a very different concept of users, so of course you won't be able to find a single solution that works for Windows and Unix. For Win95/Win98, you can do whatever you want without changing user. For WinNT/Win2K/WinXP, things are more complicated. I don't think there's a solution for WinNT. For Win2K and WinXP, programs can be executed under different privileges. I don't know how accessible the interface is. It *might* be possible, check CPAN (I didn't see anything, but I just shot a quick glance). But it is definitely more effort than just changing a variable.

Again, the most straightforward solution is to let the user log in as supervisor, then execute the script.

UpdateTake a look at Re: Running Perl program w/root privs via cron. It could help you to not have to enter a password for Unix (using sudo).

I suggest you install sudo, it's designed for this kinds of tasks.

Abigail

You can find it at SUDO

You won't be able to change your UID (see also POSIX) unless your script has root privileges to begin with (unless you do weird stuff like promping for the root password etc. etc.). Modifying $< and $> is only useful if you are root and need to be another user to perform certain functions.

Why not use sudo (or su, if you can't use sudo) to call the script?

This is the standard way to perform root functions. For example, if you install new perl modules, you will naturally do

    perl Makefile.PL
    make
    make test
    sudo make install
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instead of relying on make to make itself root to install the files. This way, you give control to the user -- the way it should be.