Swift Cocoa - Process() doesn't allow sudo - swift

Question

I have made a cocoa swift application, in which there is a NSTextField. The textfield returns a password, which is then loaded in a Process(), that brings it into a bash command script.
The command is: Echo ${1} | sudo -S echo works
To the process I pass the argument of the password, so it goes instead of the ${1}. When I run the command, the console says that usr/bin/sudo: Operation not permitted.
Is there a way I can use sudo in my bash scripts?
Help would really be appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

This is not the correct way to escalate privileges on OS X, particularly because it's terrible security; your passing around the password in cleartext like this is a generally bad practice.
Let me illustrate why this is a problem. Suppose I have this bash script:
#!/bin/bash
sleep 10
echo ${1}
Then, I execute my script, using Process:
import Foundation
let process = Process()
process.launchPath = "/bin/bash"
process.arguments = ["/path/to/foo.sh", "This is a parameter"]
process.launch()
process.waitUntilExit()
Run the script, it outputs "This is a parameter", all seems well. But, while the script is running, in a separate Terminal window, I run this command:
$ ps -ajxww | grep foo.sh
And get the output:
username 85281 85276 85281 0 1 S s006 0:00.00 /bin/bash /path/to/foo.sh This is a parameter
As you can see, the parameter is plainly visible in the process list. If the parameter to that script had been my admin password, I would have just broadcast that password to every interested process on the system.
Anyway, instead of doing things like this, you should create a privileged launchd helper tool, which you can bless using SMJobBless(). The OS will prompt for the password in a secure way, and install your helper tool in a secure location. You can then communicate with your tool via XPC to have it do things as root. See Apple's EvenBetterAuthorizationSample for an idea of how to do this.