Start OpenFire with sudo only

I am trying to start OpenFire and I only have sudo access to root. It seems impossible to start OpenFire with sudo.

First I tried to just start with /etc/init.d/openfire start

isdmjp/:98> /etc/init.d/openfire start

/etc/init.d/openfire must be run as root

ok, easy enough just sudo:

isdmjp/:96> sudo /etc/init.d/openfire start

Starting openfire: sh: /opt/openfire/logs/nohup.out: Permission denied

It seems to fail to start because it can't write to the nohup.out file.

So how do I start this thing? Note that even our system admins only have sudo access to root. Only our hardware people have true root access (crazy I know!).

I was able to start it with ./bin/openfire.sh

However, I need this to run in the background and start if the box would reboot.

What would be real nice is if could start with an Upstart script.