Is it safe to run a ruby script using sudo ?

Question

I am running redmine on Ubuntu, and I am running it using sudo. If I try to run as my redmine user, I get permission errors on the log file.

Is this safe? Should I be concerned?

Answer 1

Any time you run a script using sudo you should be concerned since in effect you are running the script as root. Therefore, to give an extreme example, if the script executes a command similar to rm -rf / you will wipe out the entire system....it's best not to use sudo to execute scripts unless you are completely aware of what the script is doing and any potentially tainted data that is consumed by it!

Answer 2

You should be careful when running any sort of web application as root. Personally, I would not recommend it.

If permissions problems on the logfile are your only problems, the better solution would be to alter the permissions of the log files/folders. Make sure the log files belong to the user account that Redmine is running as (or have group write permissions and belong to the same group). You might have to use sudo to change those permissions, but it is much safer than running a web application as root.