How do I run a sudo command in Emacs?

Question

I'm trying to create shortcut keys for some commonly used sudo shell commands (for example, having C-c s run (shell-command "sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart")).

I tried using a straight-up shell-command call as above, but it just outputs the following to the *Shell Command Output* buffer:

[sudo] password for Inaimathi:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for Inaimathi:
Sorry, try again.
[sudo] password for Inaimathi:
Sorry, try again.
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts

It doesn't actually ask for a password. I don't want to have to start up Emacs using sudo emacs, but I guess that's an option if nothing else will work.

The ideal solution would be a function from within Emacs (as opposed to OS jiggery-pokery to change the behaviour of the shell or the sudo command). Something like (sudo-shell-command "dostuff"), or (with-password-prompt (shell-command "sudo dostuff")).

Answer 1

EDIT: Scott's answer above is vastly preferable to this hack. Use that.

A possible solution:

I found out that setting a default password-asking utility solves this problem.

What I had to do is add Defaults:ALL askpass=/usr/lib/openssh/gnome-ssh-askpass to my /etc/sudoers file (using sudo visudo, obviously).

Eval-ing (shell-command "sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart") now prompts me for a password instead of trying to guess it unsuccessfully.

I'm not accepting this answer unless it becomes clear that there's no better solution; ideally I'd like something that solves the problem internally to Emacs instead of requiring you to poke around your /etc directory.