Run part of a bash script as a different user

Use the sudo command in the script.

In the form:

sudo -u username command

the sudo command runs command as the user username.

If the script is being run as root, I don't think it will prompt for a password. Otherwise, this article discusses how to use sudo with password in one command line?, and this article discusses how to use sudo without password?

# I=like:

#test if running bash as a different user works
sudo -u nobody bash -c : && RUNAS="sudo -u nobody"

echo 1: $USER

#Runs bash with commands between '_' as nobody if possible
$RUNAS bash<<_
echo 2: \$USER
_

echo 3: $USER

# ./run

1: root
2: nobody
3: root

This answer is good, but the serverfault advice is slightly dangerous - would allow anyone to run anything as root! So I'm posting here because I can't format the comment.

I would recommend using visudo to give the permissions you need as precisely as you can. Type visudo and add a line like:

username hostname = NOPASSWD: /full/path/to/command1, full/path/to/command2

If you do need to run this same thing on many hosts, you could open it up with:

username ALL = NOPASSWD: /full/path/to/command1, full/path/to/command2

But I would **not* use either:

username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

or username hostname = ALL

The sudoer man page has lots of gory details