In the OP you write:

I have the script on one of my systems that I can't modify at all

Well, this reeks of privilege escalation. Why can't you modify a script? I can think of a number of reasons/scenarios, and a short description of why this can't be done would be appropriate, so any suspicion of inappropriate privilege escalation would have been dispersed at the beginning.

So this is an XY problem. The script should be fixed in the first place, at its origin. A script which allows execution of arbitrary commands by this simple mechanism is a high security risk which should be fixed immediately. You should escalate this issue, not your privileges.

Unfortunately there are a number of vm templates with incorrect script which is a huge pain to manually log in and fix.

There are ways to automate this process. It would have been better to ask for ways of how to do that. If this script is part of a deployment environment shipped by some VM vendor, please escalate to that vendor prior to disclosure. There's no need to delete this thread (yet ;-)

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

In reply to Re^3: Is it possible to execute some command in qx argument by shmem
in thread Is it possible to execute some command in qx argument by vladimirfedorov

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