Unable to context.put a file with sudo.

[TimotheeJeannin]

In v2, the use_sudo=True parameter doesn't exist anymore.
If I try to copy a file on the remote host, here is what I get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "env/bin/fab", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('fabric==2.0.0', 'console_scripts', 'fab')()
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/invoke/program.py", line 332, in run
    self.execute()
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/invoke/program.py", line 480, in execute
    executor.execute(*self.tasks)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/invoke/executor.py", line 133, in execute
    result = call.task(*args, **call.kwargs)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/invoke/tasks.py", line 127, in __call__
    result = self.body(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/fabfile.py", line 131, in nginx
    context.put(StringIO(nginx_conf), remote='/etc/nginx/sites-enabled/website')
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/fabric/connection.py", line 639, in put
    return Transfer(self).put(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/fabric/transfer.py", line 213, in put
    sftp.putfo(fl=local, remotepath=remote)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/paramiko/sftp_client.py", line 683, in putfo
    with self.file(remotepath, 'wb') as fr:
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/paramiko/sftp_client.py", line 341, in open
    t, msg = self._request(CMD_OPEN, filename, imode, attrblock)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/paramiko/sftp_client.py", line 780, in _request
    return self._read_response(num)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/paramiko/sftp_client.py", line 832, in _read_response
    self._convert_status(msg)
  File "/home/tim/Workspace/wintest/env/lib/python3.5/site-packages/paramiko/sftp_client.py", line 863, in _convert_status
    raise IOError(errno.EACCES, text)
PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

[acdha]

This is documented in http://docs.fabfile.org/en/latest/upgrading.html#id15. There appears to be no good single-command replacement for this – e.g. you can't use c.sudo("install … /dev/stdin /path/to/remote") – and there appears to be a bug in sudo() which prevents the use of tee (it never terminates and just leaves the command hanging waiting for input).

Here's what I've been using to do the temp-file dance, which is arguably what you should always be doing anyway to avoid leaving files with unintended permissions:

def sudo_install(connection, source, dest, *, owner='root', group='root', mode='0600'):
    """
    Helper which installs a file with arbitrary permissions and ownership

    This is a replacement for Fabric 1's `put(…, use_sudo=True)` and adds the
    ability to set the expected ownership and permissions in one operation.
    """

    mktemp_result = connection.run('mktemp', hide='out')
    assert mktemp_result.ok

    temp_file = mktemp_result.stdout.strip()

    try:
        connection.put(source, temp_file)
        connection.sudo(f'install -o {owner} -g {group} -m {mode} {temp_file} {dest}')
    finally:
        connection.run(f'rm {temp_file}')

Invoked as e.g.

@task
def install_mount_status_monitor(conn):
    sudo_install(conn, override_file, "/etc/systemd/system/mount_status_monitor.service.d/override.conf")

[geoffrey-eisenbarth]

Is this the expected route to use when trying to copy a local file to a remote server outside of the user's home directory?

What is the intended way to use Fabric and copy a file into, say, /etc/nginx/? I'm trying to find the fabric2 way of using upload_template etc.

[bitprophet]

@geoffrey-eisenbarth At the moment there's no "blessed" approach for this - see the bit about sudo under http://www.fabfile.org/upgrading.html#file-transfer

For now, you'd want to do something basic like

c.put("path/to/local/nginx.conf") # implicit to remote $HOME
c.sudo("mv nginx.conf /etc/nginx/") # again implicitly with a CWD of $HOME