Use sudo in shell script

Question

I have access to another user's account using command:

sudo su - other_user

I do not have enter password. It seems that this is the only command that sudo allows me.

After that I'm able to perform several tasks like file copying and server restarting. I would like to automate those tasks so that a script can be executed by me, which would get other_user's rights and do what it has to do. However, sudo spawns another shell, which until I exit it blocks script execution. Is it possible to control that shell and to send commands into it from my script?

Update 2011-11-01:

I tried suggestions from the answers and both these commands:

sudo -u other_user whoami
sudo su - other_user -c "whoami"

ask for password.

Unfortunately, I could not find sudoers to look at settings. The situation annoys me a bit because a have privileges to do what I want to, but can't automate that.

Answer 1

Use the -coption of the su command to execute commands as another user.
If needed, you can also use the output of those commands in your script, or in your shell.

Example:

[infeligo@server ~] cat /home/kenny/secretfile.txt  
cat: /home/kenny/secretfile.txt: Permission denied  
[infeligo@server ~] sudo su - kenny -c "cat /home/kenny/secretfile.txt"  
Dear diary: Today was a boring day at work. Good thing it's a friday!  
[infeligo@server ~]

Answer 2

The use of su is not entirely necessary.

$ sudo -u other_user whoami
other_user