logging/print statements not being captured when running script with Runas command

Question

I am running a python script as a different user with the runas command but I cannot see my output/errors anywhere. I am trying to debug my script, but I cannot see any logging info so it is near impossible to for me to tell what is happening.

Here is what my script looks like:

def main():

    logging.basicConfig(filename="C:/temp/out.txt",
                    filemode='a',
                    format='%(asctime)s,%(msecs)d %(name)s %(levelname)s %(message)s',
                    datefmt='%H:%M:%S',
                    level=logging.DEBUG)

    # using pyodbc
    # Connection string for SQL Server using Windows Authentication
    conn_str = (
        r'DRIVER={ODBC Driver 17 for SQL Server};'
        r'SERVER=server;'
        r'DATABASE=database;'
        r'Trusted_Connection=yes;'
    )

    try:
        # Attempt to establish a connection
        conn = pyodbc.connect(conn_str)
        logging.info("Connection successful!")

        # Close connection
        conn.close()

    except pyodbc.Error as e:
        # Handle connection errors 
        if '28000' in str(e):  # SQL Server Login failed 
            logging.info("Authentication failed: User does not have access to the database.")
        else:
            logging.info(f"An error occurred: {e}")

if __name__ == "__main__":

  main()

Here is the runas command I use:

runas /user:domain\username "C:/path/to/exe" "C:/temp/file.py"

Everytime I run the command nothing gets logged to my output file and I am unsure what is happening. Am I missing something obvious here?

I know something is going on because when I run the script manually in my IDE the logging works, and I will get an error since I don't have access to the DB and I can see it in the server error logs. When I run with runas I don't see any error logs on the server, but also no logging info

Answer 1

Your path "C:\temp\out.txt" has single backslashes, which are used as escape characters.

If you mean for them to actually be part of the path, I would suggest you to change them to double backslashes:

"C:\\temp\\out.txt"

An even better way is to simply use forward slashes:

"C:/temp/out.txt"