I've been trying to make a bash file for newbie Linux users and I wanted to know if there is a way to test the bash file before running it.
Can I just see the result of my bash file in the terminal and not actually run it?
For example, I don't want to actually update and upgrade my system when I run this script, I just want to see the result of my bash file, whether it gives me back some error or not.
Wanted to know if there is a way to just see the result, like see the result of my 'echo' commands and etc.
echo ---------------
echo hello and welcome to the automized bash file for your new linux distro!
echo ---------------
sudo apt-get update -y ; sudo apt-get upgrade -y ; sudo apt-get autoremove -y ; sudo apt-get autoclean -y ; sudo apt-get clean -y
echo ---------------
echo as you were drinking your coffee,
echo your linux distro got updated, and autocleaned as well!
Thanks in advance!
To see the results of running a bash file, a bash interpreter would have to interpret it. So the simple answer would be no.
However, if you are willing to use an online tool, you could run a bash script online. In this manner, you can see the results of running a bash script, without ever having to run it on your own machine.
A google search popped up these ones, but I cannot vouch for their legitimacy:
https://www.jdoodle.com/test-bash-shell-script-online/ (for evaluating the results of a script)
https://www.shellcheck.net/ (for assessing shell code quality)
There's no general way to run a shell script without running it. You can sometimes sort-of modify the script to make it go through the motions without actually doing anything significant, but this requires understanding the script and the commands in it.
For example, in the update script in the question, you could just add echo before each sudo apt-get command, something like this (note that I've reformatted it a bit, and added quotes around some fixed strings):
echo '---------------'
echo 'hello and welcome to the automized bash file for your new linux distro!'
echo '---------------'
echo sudo apt-get update -y
echo sudo apt-get upgrade -y
echo sudo apt-get autoremove -y
...etc...
This will simply print the commands, rather than executing them. (Note: if any commands had redirections, e.g. somecommand >outputfile or somecommand | anothercommand, the adding echo doesn't remove the redirection, so you'll need to make other changes as well).
If you want to actually see what the various apt-get commands would do if you ran them... you're in luck, because apt-get happens to have a --dry-run option (see the man page and this AskUbuntu question).
Note that this is a feature specific to apt-get. Very few shell commands have an option like this, so it's not like some sort of universal just-try-it-out switch. In fact, not even all apt-get subcommands support --dry-run.
Most relevantly, apt-get update doesn't support --dry-run! And it wouldn't be useful if it did. If you don't start by updating the package indexes -- actually updating them, not just pretending to -- then the other apt-get commands won't be able to tell what's new, and won't actually tell you what needs to be changed.
If you don't actually-for-real update the indexes, then you can't tell what the rest of the script would do if it ran for real. So you could do something like this:
...
sudo apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get upgrade --dry-run --assume-no
sudo apt-get autoremove --dry-run --assume-no
...etc...
...but be aware the script is actually executing, and while some of its effects have been disabled, others haven't.
Related
I'm currently getting into linux and want to write a bash script which sets up a new machine just the way I want it to be.
In order to do that I want to install differnt things on it etc.
What I'm trying to achieve here is to have a setting at the top of the bash script which will make apt accept all [y/n] questions asked during the execution of the script
Question example I want to automatically accept:
After this operation, 1092 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
I just started creating the file so here is what i have so far:
#!/bin/bash
# Constants
# Set apt to accept all [y/n] questions
>> some setting here <<
# Update and upgrade apt
apt update;
apt full-upgrade;
# Install terminator
apt install terminator
apt is meant to be used interactively. If you want to automate things, look at apt-get, and in particular its -y option:
-y, --yes, --assume-yes
Automatic yes to prompts; assume "yes" as answer to all prompts and run non-interactively. If an undesirable
situation, such as changing a held package, trying to install an
unauthenticated package or removing an essential package occurs then
apt-get will abort. Configuration Item: APT::Get::Assume-Yes.
See also man apt-get for many more options.
With apt:
apt -o Apt::Get::Assume-Yes=true install <package>
See: man apt and man apt.conf
If you indeed want to set it up once at the top of the file as you say and then forget about it, you can use the APT_CONFIG environment variable. See apt.conf.
echo "APT::Get::Assume-Yes=yes" > /tmp/_tmp_apt.conf
export APT_CONFIG=/tmp/_tmp_apt.conf
apt-get update
apt-get install terminator
...
You can set up API assume yes permanently as follow:
echo "APT::Get::Assume-Yes \"true\";\nAPT::Get::allow \"true\";" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/90_no_prompt
Another easy way to set it at the top of the your script is to use the command alias apt-get="apt-get --assume-yes", which causes all subsequent invocations of apt-get to include the --assume-yes argument. For example apt-get upgrade would automatically get converted to apt-get --assume-yes upgrade" by bash.
Please note, that this may cause errors, because some apt-get subcommands do not accept the --assume-yes argument. For example apt-get help would be converted to apt-get --assume-yes help which returns an error, because the help subcommand can't be used together with --assume-yes.
so what i want to do is to create a shell script to update and upgrade for that i just created an .sh file in which there are three lines of command
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
after running .sh file it executes just fine.
but what i want to do more with it is - after successfully running update command and while running upgrade command it ask us to get the archive with 'Y/N'.
can i do something in .sh so that i don't have to type 'y' or 'n' . i want y to be default.
On a debian based installation on Raspberry i using the short form of IF THEN ELSE like this...
apt update && apt -y full-upgrade || echo 'Hm, something failed!'
...and "The Matrix" asking nothing.
Hi i'm writing a bash script that have to keep some installation process quick and easy for non dev-user.
I wrote this loop that has to check if the command sudo add-apt-repository give the error sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found and if so, need to run the command sudo apt-get install software-properties-common then reiterate the first command and go on with other instrucion
until sudo add-apt-repository; do
echo "sudo: add-apt-repository: command not found"
sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
done
...
other command
I tryed that loop but it don't run the second command under the echo. Can please someone help me fix that problem?
Thanks
Which behaviour do you have ? Because even if add-apt-repository is installed sudo add-apt-repository will fail
$ sudo add-apt-repository
Error: need a repository as argument
$ echo $?
1
Maybe, using "which" command is better, it returns 0 if the command exists and 1 if not.
Using conditional if instead of until should be enough to install the command.
I am very new to bash scripting. I have the following script:
cp /etc/apt/sources.list /var/chroot/etc/apt/sources.list
chroot /var/chroot/
apt-get update
apt-get --simulate install $a > output
I actually want the last 2 comands to be run in chroot environment but I do not know how to give it to it, I searched but I could not find. I also want chroot to exit after execution of the commands, but it currently hangs. What can I do to prevent this?
EDIT: For future visitors:
cp /etc/apt/sources.list /var/chroot/etc/apt/sources.list
chroot /var/chroot apt-get update > /dev/null
chroot /var/chroot apt-get --simulate install nodejs
The command you want to run in the chroot environment must be given to chroot as an argument. See the manual page.
I am writing a bash script (for apt-get based OS's) that automates the installations process of various programs. In this process I run "apt-get -fy update" and "apt-get -fy upgrade" sometimes. In the process of upgrading, occasionally, a restart is required.
My question: is there a way of testing if the system is asking for a restart after running "apt-get -fy upgrade"? I am trying to write the script for it to run from beginning to end without human any intervention.
Thank you.
Use the file /var/run/reboot-required which does exactly what you want. So we will have this:
apt-get update && apt-get -fy upgrade && [ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && shutdown -r now
I don't recall whether apt-get actually gives you a predictably formatted message informing you whether a restart is necessary, but if it does you could just check the output, e.g. something like apt-get -fy update | grep -q 'fill in restart message pattern' && reboot.
Another probably less reliable alternative is to use checkrestart from the debian-goodies package.
If you do a
apt-get -fy update && shutdown -r now
it will respect the order and will update until finish and finally restart your server.