Cap invoke and sudo

Question

I want to install a gem on all my application servers, but gem install requires sudo access - how can I enable sudo only for running this capistrano command?

In other words, I don't wish to use sudo for all my deployment recipes, just when I invoke this command on the command line.

Answer 1

Found it - cap invoke COMMAND="command that requires sudo" SUDO=1

Answer 2

I'm not quite sure I understand the question, but I think you're asking how to restrict sudo to the one specific command and not have to grant unlimited capacity for mischief to all of your Ruby developers.

/etc/sudoers can be set up to restrict the commands which users are allowed to invoke as root. It is commonly set to ALL, but you can provide just a list of the allowed commands.

Answer 3

It would be best to use unix ACLs or similar permissions for this. Give the deploy user sudoer access, then you can call run "sudo do_something" and it will be sudo-level access only for that call.