topic Re: root shell in Operating System - Linux

root shell

Tarek_1 — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 09:58:00 GMT

Hi,
i want to change the root shell password from /sbin/sh to /bin/ksh
is it possible?
what impact does it have?
thanks
Tarek

Re: root shell

Goran Koruga — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 09:59:48 GMT

Hi.

Of course it's possible, whether it's a good idea is another question.

It would probably be better to use /bin/sh and then start ksh from your .profile or manually.

G.

Re: root shell

Donald Kok — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 10:11:00 GMT

Tarek,

No you should not do this! When you want to login in single user mode, your filesystems are not mounted, and you will not get a shell.

You can put ksh in your .profile, so you can use ksh.

Greetzz
Donald

Re: root shell

Tarek_1 — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 10:36:46 GMT

ok
i have my root shell /sbin/sh and created a .profile under my home dir (but this is also read by sh)
then i issue ksh but it doesn't read my configuration file (.profile)
why?

Re: root shell

Goran Koruga — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 10:47:53 GMT

Because it's not a login shell.

G.

Re: root shell

Ramkumar Devanathan — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:20:01 GMT

Hi Tarek,

Normally the /sbin/sh binary is compiled with all the libraries statically linked. So, it will run even when the OS boots in single user mode.

ksh may have some dynamic linking so.s built in and so, you wouldn't want to use this.

login with kshell as a non-root user.

Thereafter to work as root,
run

$ su

- ramd.

Re: root shell

Tarek_1 — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:36:38 GMT

i'm already loggin in as a ksh user and then issuing su but doesn't work
let's say after i switch to root
i want to run a script that sets my env variables:
user> su
#> ksh
#> ./setup
this setup is the script i want to run and inside i have:
set -o vi
alias ll='ls -lart'
PS1=...
and so on..
how should i do?

Re: root shell

Goran Koruga — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 11:51:25 GMT

Hi Tarek.

ksh should read the file pointed at by ENV variable, i.e. ~/.kshrc or so.

G.

Re: root shell

Stuart Browne — Wed, 09 Apr 2003 22:09:36 GMT

What has been said about just launcing 'ksh' thus far is almost correct.

Whilst 'ksh' isn't being launched from 'login' directly, and doesn't think it needs to read '~/.profile', you can tell ksh that it is a login shell by passing the argument '-l'.

If you read 'man ksh', it will outline what this does and doesn't do..

One other note, so you dont have to double 'exit' when you leave the shell, instead of just calling '/bin/ksh' as the last line of your login, use 'exec /bin/ksh'. This will switch the control of the tty to the ksh process. When it ends, it closes off everything, and logs you out.