I have the following shell script that I normally run successfully as a system service (created in automator:
#!/bin/bash
for f in "$#"
do ln -s "$f" "${f}.deleteThisExtensionAfterMoving"
echo "${f}.deleteThisExtensionAfterMoving"
done
However, when trying to use this to make symlinks in folders that I'm not the owner of, it fails.
I tried saving it as a script, then using applescript in automator as I've seen described elsewhere here:
on run {input, parameters}
do shell script ("sudo ~/Documents/z_misc/makesymlink '" & POSIX path of input & "'") with administrator privileges
end run
However, upon running the service, I see a "command not found" error.
When I tried saving the script as a .sh file and using that instead, it still didn't work. When I try running from terminal without the preceding "sudo" command, I get a "permission denied" error.
When I try running from terminal without the preceding "sudo" command, I get a "permission denied" error.
The "permission denied" error when attempting to execute a shell script (or binary executable) is typically caused because the file is not set as executable. Use the following command in Terminal:
chmod +x file
Or:
chmod +x /path/to/file
Quoting if there are spaces or escaping spaces with a backslash (\), but not both.
However, the "permission denied" error can also be caused if there is a privileges issue with where the shell script or binary executable is located.
Keeping executables in you Documents folder or any of the default folders, except for Public, within your Home folder can be problematic to Automator actions and for use in Terminal.
I created a bin folder in my Home folder and place my shell scripts and binary executables that I do not want elsewhere, e.g. /use/local/bin, and have added "$HOME/bin" to my PATH.
Here is what I'd use in the Run AppleScript action in my Automator Service/Quick Action:
Example AppleScript code:
on run {input, parameters}
repeat with thisItem in input
set thisItem to the quoted form of the POSIX path of thisItem
do shell script ("$HOME/bin/makesymlink " & thisItem) with administrator privileges
end repeat
end run
As coded, this allows for multiple Finder items to be passed to the Automator Service/Quick Action.
That all said, without seeing the contest of the makesymlink file there is not anything else I can think off at the moment.
From the linked Technical Note below:
Note: Using sudo(8) with with administrator privileges is generally unnecessary and creates security holes; simply remove the sudo.
Have a look at Technical Note TN2065 do shell script in AppleScript
If you are going to use the do shell script command, then I suggest you read the entire Technical Note.
Just simplyfing a process for some internal mac users to put files in the right places but having trouble with a plist file needing to go in /Library/LaunchDaemons. Using some applescript to accomplish this. Unfortunately (for me) LaunchDaemons is read only, so need to sudo root privilege to copy a file into there. I can't seem to get it right as to how to do that with applescript. Copying files to unrestricted locations is done just fine with something like
do shell script ("/bin/cp " & posix_path & "file_to_copy.crt" & "/path/to/folder/")
For the plist file in LaunchDaemons, ideally something like below would work,
do shell script ("sudo /bin/cp " & posix_path & "file_to_copy.plist" & "/Library/LaunchDaemons/") with administrator privileges
I've tried a lot of variations but no luck. Reading through stack overflow I haven't spotted a question quite like this. Any insight would be much appreciated!
As far as using sudo in a do shell script command, do not use sudo in a do shell script command, have a look at: Technical Note TN2065 do shell script in AppleScript
As far as /Library/LaunchDaemons/, it is not read-only! In macOS Big Sur, here are the permissions on a recent 11.4 build:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel - 96 May 30 13:01 LaunchDaemons
Note that it is writable for root and why you need to use with administrator privileges when using the do shell script command to write to it.
Example AppleScript code
do shell script "cp '/path/to/filename.plist' '/Library/LaunchDaemons/'" with administrator privileges
The above do shell script command works for just fine me.
Note the single-quotes around the POSIX paths.
If you are not using hard coded POSIX paths and using variables and concatenating the do shell script command, you can use e.g, the quoted form of theFilename or theFilename's quoted form, etc.
Example AppleScript code
set theFilename to the POSIX path of (choose file)
set theDestinationFolder to "/Library/LaunchDaemons/"
do shell script "cp " & ¬
theFilename's quoted form & space & ¬
theDestinationFolder's quoted form ¬
with administrator privileges
Could someone tell me what is wrong with this:
tell application "Terminal"
activate
tell application "System Events"
keystroke "sudo"
keystroke return
keystroke "purge"
keystroke return
end tell:
end tell
Not sure why you want to use Automator and Applescript and things when you can do that perfectly well in a bash shell script.
If you copy this file and save it on your Desktop as purgenow
#!/bin/bash
sudo /usr/sbin/purge
then start Terminal and make the script executable like this
chmod +x ~/Desktop/purgenow
you will be able to double-click it and run the script.
The command with the sudo, should really only work if you have adminstrator rights on your account, or are logged in as root, as normally you'd be prompted for a password, you'll have a hard time entering the password for the shell - utility from AppleScript.
Instead, you can excempt the whole sudo command, as you can have the do shell script event take care of that for you, either by specifying the password by performing a do shell script with administrator privileges and enter the account name that holds the administrator rights, and password, when prompted.
You can also specify predicates to the do shell script event that lets you specify both username and password, to get rid of the prompt for password dialog, and have the purge command run automatically with administrator privileges.
It may under some circumstances be feasible to prepend the do shell scriptevent with tell me, for the case that the do shell script event is called from within an application block, (which is bad style really, and should be avoided whenever possible).
do shell script "/usr/sbin/purge" with administrator privileges use name "Admin" password "password"
You can read about the do shell script event in the Standard Additions dictionary of Script Editor. There is also a Technical Note, you may wish to skim: Technical Note TN2065: do shell script in AppleScript.
I have created a shell .command on Mac OS X that I would like to distribute. Based on my testing, you can't execute the .command file by double clicking without changing permissions first ( making executable. ) I don't want users to use the terminal and change permissions, it's too hard for them.
The shell script creates a folder structure for a project, based on where the script is. It needs to be able to run anywhere the user puts it.
The research I have done indicates that I need to use an Apple script to run the file to prompt for the user's password to get around permissions.
Any advice on how to do this?
Distribute the file either by zip or DMG - props Thilo.
How do I set up a shell script to execute from the Mac OSX dock? It seems that simply creating a shortcut will open the file in my editor. Is there a flag I need to set somewhere to tell it to run instead of opening it for editing?
You could create a Automator workflow with a single step - "Run Shell Script"
Then File > Save As, and change the File Format to "Application". When you open the application, it will run the Shell Script step, executing the command, exiting after it completes.
The benefit to this is it's really simple to do, and you can very easily get user input (say, selecting a bunch of files), then pass it to the input of the shell script (either to stdin, or as arguments).
(Automator is in your /Applications folder!)
If you don't need a Terminal window, you can make any executable file an Application just by creating a shell script Example and moving it to the filename Example.app/Contents/MacOS/Example. You can place this new application in your dock like any other, and execute it with a click.
NOTE: the name of the app must exactly match the script name. So the top level directory has to be Example.app and the script in the Contents/MacOS subdirectory must be named Example, and the script must be executable.
If you do need to have the terminal window displayed, I don't have a simple solution. You could probably do something with Applescript, but that's not very clean.
On OSX Mavericks:
Create your shell script.
Make your shell script executable:
chmod +x your-shell-script.sh
Rename your script to have a .app suffix:
mv your-shell-script.sh your-shell-script.app
Drag the script to the OSX dock.
Rename your script back to a .sh suffix:
mv your-shell-script.app your-shell-script.sh
Right-click the file in Finder, and click the "Get Info" option.
At the bottom of the window, set the shell script to open with the terminal.
Now when you click on the script in the dock, A terminal window will pop up and execute your script.
Bonus: To get the terminal to close when your script has completed, add exit 0 to the end and change the terminal settings to "close the shell if exited cleanly" like it says to do in this SO answer.
I know this is old but in case it is helpful to others:
If you need to run a script and want the terminal to pop up so you can see the results you can do like Abyss Knight said and change the extension to .command. If you double click on it it will open a terminal window and run.
I however needed this to run from automator or appleScript. So to get this to open a new terminal the command I ran from "run shell script" was "open myShellScript.command" and it opened in a new terminal.
As long as your script is executable and doesn't have any extension you can drag it as-is to the right side (Document side) of the Dock and it will run in a terminal window when clicked instead of opening an editor.
If you want to have an extension (like foo.sh), you can go to the file info window in Finder and change the default application for that particular script from whatever it is (TextEdit, TextMate, whatever default is set on your computer for .sh files) to Terminal. It will then just execute instead of opening in a text editor. Again, you will have to drag it to the right side of the Dock.
In the Script Editor:
do shell script "/full/path/to/your/script -with 'all desired args'"
Save as an application bundle.
As long as all you want to do is get the effect of the script, this will work fine. You won't see STDOUT or STDERR.
I think this thread may be helpful: http://forums.macosxhints.com/archive/index.php/t-70973.html
To paraphrase, you can rename it with the .command extension or create an AppleScript to run the shell.
As joe mentioned, creating the shell script and then creating an applescript script to call the shell script, will accomplish this, and is quite handy.
Shell Script
Create your shell script in your favorite text editor, for example:
mono "/Volumes/Media/~Users/me/Software/keepass/keepass.exe"
(this runs the w32 executable, using the mono framework)
Save shell script, for my example "StartKeepass.sh"
Apple Script
Open AppleScript Editor, and call the shell script
do shell script "sh /Volumes/Media/~Users/me/Software/StartKeepass.sh" user name "<enter username here>" password "<Enter password here>" with administrator privileges
do shell script - applescript command to call external shell commands
"sh ...." - this is your shell script (full path) created in step one (you can also run direct commands, I could omit the shell script and just run my mono command here)
user name - declares to applescript you want to run the command as a specific user
"<enter username here> - replace with your username (keeping quotes) ex "josh"
password - declares to applescript your password
"<enter password here>" - replace with your password (keeping quotes) ex "mypass"
with administrative privileges - declares you want to run as an admin
Create Your .APP
save your applescript as filename.scpt, in my case RunKeepass.scpt
save as... your applescript and change the file format to application, resulting in RunKeepass.app in my case
Copy your app file to your apps folder
Exact steps to achieve that in macOS Monterey 12.3
Open Automator
File -> New
Choose Application
Go to Library -> Utilities
Double-click Run Shell Script
Type in whatever command you want to run. For example, try the command to toggle Dark Mode:
osascript -e 'tell app "System Events" to tell appearance preferences to set dark mode to not dark mode'
File -> Save
Drag the saved file to the Dock, done!
pip install mac-appify
I had trouble with the accepted solution but this command worked for me.
Install
pip install mac-appify
Run
/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/appify ~/bin/webex_start.sh ~/Desktop/webex.app
Adding to Cahan's clear answer ... to open a shell script from the dock without passing any arguments to it, try:
open [name of your script].scpt"
example:
open "//Users/user/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~ScriptEditor2/Documents/myScript.scpt"
Someone wrote...
I just set all files that end in ".sh" to open with Terminal. It works
fine and you don't have to change the name of each shell script you
want to run.