how to launch a command that requires elevated privileges

[Joe Areeda]

I'm just starting a cross-platform installer project. I suppose a bigger question is why do it as a Java app rather than a native installer. I'll discuss that after my question.

The concept is a javaws app that scans the system for the needed apps, libraries and directories needed, and then creates, installs or downloads what is needed.

My problem is that if a prerequisite is missing that has an installer, I'd like to launch a program that asks for the required password and runs the installer. I've seen it done but don't know how to do it.

Why my own installer?

I'm not sure that it's the only way to get this done but I can't figure out how to do what I need with macports, msi, deb and rpm installers

My app is written in Matlab, and installing it is just a tar or unzip

There may be multiple versions of Matlab and the user has to choose which one to use. Matlab is not installed by a package manager and so require a package is not an option

There are environment variables that may need to be set, and a good GUI is easier than package options as far as I can tell

It needs to run on Mac, a few flavors of Linux, and Windows and while I know how to almost everything I need in Java, I know almost nothing about the native package managers

I'm not against doing this with native package managers. I've been reading up on them but keep running into the need for non-standard kludges (I think) to do this kind of stuff.

Any discussion of the problems would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Joe