how do you make the scripts in /home/$user/bin accessible using sudo?

Question

How do you make the scripts in /home/$user/bin accessible using sudo? as in:

sudo $NameOfScript

in using Ubuntu 12.04

Answer 1

Environment variables are reset for sudo for security reasons, including the PATH variable that controls which programs you can run conveniently at a prompt.

However, you can bypass this limitation by specifying the absolute or relative path to the command you want to use. In your example:

sudo /home/$user/bin/$NameOfScript

As compared to the approach of changing PATH, this preserves the security precautions around root's environment variables while still allowing you to run whatever program you want with sudo.