"mesg n" and /etc/profile

[James A. Donovan]

Anyone know the correct way to test whether a login is an "initial connection" or a "su -"?

I set "mesg n" in my /etc/profile, and I want to get rid of the "mesg: cannot change mode" message I get every time I use "su - username" when switching.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

I would think some variation of the who command will do it.

Also, there is an sulog that can be used to match against current sessions plus some evidence in the syslog itself.

This message is a good thing btw, not a bad. It shows that you don't permit terminal sessions to change settings on the fly. It prevents hacks.

SEP

[James A. Donovan]

...just figured out a way....man page for su pointed the way....

[ `echo ${0}` != "-su" ] && mesg n


this works for me, as all the users on my systems are only allowed to use /usr/bin/sh as their default shell.....

[James A. Donovan]

...just figured out a way....man page for su pointed the way....

[ `echo ${0}` != "-su" ] && mesg n


this works for me, as all the users on my systems are only allowed to use /usr/bin/sh as their default shell.....

[spex]

Hi James,

'who am i' returns real uid, while 'whoami' returns effective uid, so:

if [ "$(who am i)x" == "$(whoami)x" ];
then
# no su
else
# su
fi

PCS

[spex]

I wasn't at a terminal when I wrote my last response. The conditional should be:

if [ "$(who am i | awk '{print $1}')x" = "$(whoami)x" ];
then
# no su
else
# su
fi

PCS