Using sudo command in a child process using node - node.js

Question

I am trying to copy a bundle directory into a root directory of a remote server. I try to do this using node and so far I achieved piping the tar content to server and untar it. However when I try to move the directory to root folder it requires sudo access and I just couldn't find a way to do it. I tried -t option for pseudoterminal but I guess that works running from a shell. Here is what I have done so far, any help is highly appreciated:
const path = require("path");
const exec = require('child_process').exec;
var absolutePath = path.resolve(__dirname, "../");
const allCommands = [];
/*
*
*
* 1-) cd to the root folder of the app
* 2-) tar dist folder and pipe the result to the ssh connection
* 3-) connect to server with ssh
* 4-) try to create dist and old_dists folder, if not existing they will be created otherwise they will give an error and rest of the script will continue running
* 5-) cp contents of dist folder to old_dists/dist_$(dateofmoment) folder so if something is wrong somehow you have an backup of the existing config
* 6-) untar the piped tar content into dist folder, untar only files under the first parent directory --strip-components=1 flag, if it was 2 it will dive 2 level from the root folder
*
*
*/
allCommands.push("cd " + absolutePath);
allCommands.push("tar -czvP dist | ssh hostnameofmyserver 'mkdir dist ; mkdir old_dists; cp -R dist/ old_dists/dist_$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S) && tar -xzvP -C dist --strip-components=1'");
//I would like to untar the incoming file into /etc/myapp for example rather than my home directory, this requires sudo and don't know how to handle it
exec(allCommands.join(" && "),
(error, stdout, stderr) => {
console.log(`stdout: ${stdout}`);
console.log(`stderr: ${stderr}`);
if (error !== null) {
console.log(`exec error: ${error}`);
}
});
Also whats the best place for storing web application folder in ubuntu server where multiple user can deploy an app, is it a good practice to make the owner of the directory root user, or it just doesn't matter?

Answer 1

As noted in the man page for ssh, you can specify multiple -t arguments to force pty allocation even if the OpenSSH client's stdin is not a tty (which it won't be by default when you spawn a child process in node).
From there you should be able to simply write the password to the child process's .stdin stream when you see the sudo prompt on the .stdout stream.
On a semi-related note, if you want more (programmatic) control over the ssh connection or you don't want to spin up a child process, there is the ssh2 module. You could even do the tarring within node too if you wanted, as there are also tar modules on npm.