topic Re: su and su- in Operating System - HP-UX

su and su-

sanalkumar — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 04:55:44 GMT

i am new to hp unix can any one tell the differnce between su and su- can you suggest any books for knowing ssh..thanks in advance

Re: su and su-

Anshumali — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 05:24:59 GMT

If the - flag is specified, the su command initializes the user environment else no.

Re: su and su-

Jeeshan — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 05:36:24 GMT

"su" is equiv "su root" and "su -" equiv "su - root"

the diff between "su" and "su -" is "su -" you log in as a root with the env setting/profile (i.e you really log in as a root).

if you "su" only then basically you just "borrow" the root permission without having all the root env setting/profile.

Re: su and su-

Anshumali — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:04:39 GMT

Ahsan, what if i am root already and do a
su - (username) ?

su isn;t limited for gaining root access. :)

Re: su and su-

Aneesh Mohan — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:34:52 GMT

Sanal,

su login :- to switch login without executing profile/env variable

su - login :- to switch login with executing the login profile/env

Thanks,

Aneesh

Re: su and su-

sanalkumar — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 06:59:44 GMT

Thanks to all of you for the immediate response.

Re: su and su-

Mridul Shrivastava — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 08:17:25 GMT

su means switch user and as its expansion describes it is used for switching user.. It could be root to non-rrot user or vice versa...

The difference between su and su - is already been explained by Anshumali.