Why

Recently I was trying to write a script in golang that would install a package on my Ubuntu server. I did know that os/exec library allows you to run a command but I was unsure as to how should I actually frame the command so that it can do the installation. So, this is not guide will show a snippet showing how can you install a package using the OS’s package manager using golang.

How

Let me show an example so that it becomes easy to understand. Suppose I want to install on ubuntu, I would do it this way.

c := exec.Command("/bin/sh", "-c", "sudo apt-get install prometheus-node-exporter")
		if err := c.Run(); err != nil {
            fmt.Println("Error in installation: ", err)
		}
	}

First argument to Command specifies why shell to use, man says -c flag is for - “Read commands from the command_string operand instead of from the standard input. Special parameter 0 will be set from the command_name operand and the positional parameters ($1, $2, etc.) set from the remaining argument operands.” and finally the command for installing prometheus-node-exporter using apt-get package manager.
Similarly, we can do execute other commands following the same design.