NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | SIGNALS | CONFIG FILES | EXIT STATUS | FILES | NOTES | SEE ALSO | HISTORY | AVAILABILITY | COLOPHON

SU(1)                           User Commands                          SU(1)

NAME         top

       su - run a command with substitute user and group ID

SYNOPSIS         top

       su [options] [-] [user [argument...]]

DESCRIPTION         top

       su allows to run commands with a substitute user and group ID.
       When called without arguments, su defaults to running an interactive
       shell as root.
       For backward compatibility, su defaults to not change the current
       directory and to only set the environment variables HOME and SHELL
       (plus USER and LOGNAME if the target user is not root).  It is
       recommended to always use the --login option (instead of its shortcut
       -) to avoid side effects caused by mixing environments.
       This version of su uses PAM for authentication, account and session
       management.  Some configuration options found in other su
       implementations, such as support for a wheel group, have to be
       configured via PAM.
       su is mostly designed for unprivileged users, the recommended
       solution for privileged users (e.g. scripts executed by root) is to
       use non-set-user-ID command runuser(1) that does not require
       authentication and provide separate PAM configuration. If the PAM
       session is not required at all then the recommend solution is to use
       command setpriv(1).

OPTIONS         top

       -c, --command=command
              Pass command to the shell with the -c option.
       -f, --fast
              Pass -f to the shell, which may or may not be useful,
              depending on the shell.
       -g, --group=group
              Specify the primary group.  This option is available to the
              root user only.
       -G, --supp-group=group
              Specify a supplemental group.  This option is available to the
              root user only.  The first specified supplementary group is
              also used as a primary group if the option --group is
              unspecified.
       -, -l, --login
              Start the shell as a login shell with an environment similar
              to a real login:
                 o      clears all the environment variables except TERM
                 o      initializes the environment variables HOME, SHELL,
                        USER, LOGNAME, and PATH
                 o      changes to the target user's home directory
                 o      sets argv[0] of the shell to '-' in order to make
                        the shell a login shell
       -m, -p, --preserve-environment
              Preserve the entire environment, i.e. it does not set HOME,
              SHELL, USER nor LOGNAME.  This option is ignored if the option
              --login is specified.
       -s, --shell=shell
              Run the specified shell instead of the default.  The shell to
              run is selected according to the following rules, in order:
                 o      the shell specified with --shell
                 o      the shell specified in the environment variable
                        SHELL, if the --preserve-environment option is used
                 o      the shell listed in the passwd entry of the target
                        user
                 o      /bin/sh
              If the target user has a restricted shell (i.e. not listed in
              /etc/shells), the --shell option and the SHELL environment
              variables are ignored unless the calling user is root.
       --session-command=command
              Same as -c but do not create a new session.  (Discouraged.)
       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.
       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

SIGNALS         top

       Upon receiving either SIGINT, SIGQUIT or SIGTERM, su terminates its
       child and afterwards terminates itself with the received signal.

CONFIG FILES         top

       su reads the /etc/default/su and /etc/login.defs configuration files.
       The following configuration items are relevant for su(1):
       FAIL_DELAY (number)
           Delay in seconds in case of an authentication failure. The number
           must be a non-negative integer.
       ENV_PATH (string)
           Defines the PATH environment variable for a regular user.  The
           default value is /usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin.
       ENV_ROOTPATH (string)
       ENV_SUPATH (string)
           Defines the PATH environment variable for root.  The default
           value is /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:
           /usr/bin.
       ALWAYS_SET_PATH (boolean)
           If set to yes and --login and --preserve-environment were not
           specified su initializes PATH.

EXIT STATUS         top

       su normally returns the exit status of the command it executed.  If
       the command was killed by a signal, su returns the number of the
       signal plus 128.
       Exit status generated by su itself:
                 1      Generic error before executing the requested command
                 126    The requested command could not be executed
                 127    The requested command was not found

FILES         top

       /etc/pam.d/su    default PAM configuration file
       /etc/pam.d/su-l  PAM configuration file if --login is specified
       /etc/default/su  command specific logindef config file
       /etc/login.defs  global logindef config file

NOTES         top

       For security reasons su always logs failed log-in attempts to the
       btmp file, but it does not write to the lastlog file at all.  This
       solution allows to control su behavior by PAM configuration.  If you
       want to use the pam_lastlog module to print warning message about
       failed log-in attempts then the pam_lastlog has to be configured to
       update the lastlog file as well. For example by:
              session  required  pam_lastlog.so nowtmp

SEE ALSO         top

       setpriv(1), login.defs(5), shells(5), pam(8), runuser(8)

HISTORY         top

       This su command was derived from coreutils' su, which was based on an
       implementation by David MacKenzie.

AVAILABILITY         top

       The su command is part of the util-linux package and is available
       from Linux Kernel Archive 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the util-linux (a random collection of Linux
       utilities) project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.  If you have a
       bug report for this manual page, send it to
       util-linux@vger.kernel.org.  This page was obtained from the
       project's upstream Git repository 
       ⟨git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git⟩ on
       2017-07-05.  If you discover any rendering problems in this HTML ver‐
       sion of the page, or you believe there is a better or more up-to-date
       source for the page, or you have corrections or improvements to the
       information in this COLOPHON (which is not part of the original man‐
       ual page), send a mail to man-pages@man7.org
util-linux                        July 2014                            SU(1)

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