"su - <username>" asks for password unless isued by root

[Arturo Castaneda]

I'm logged as root at the system, every time I issue a "su - " to switch to any user the system asks for the password, what's going on?

Any way to avoid this?

[John Palmer]

Hi,

Check the permissions of the su command. They should read:-

-r-sr-xr-x 1 root bin

Regards,
John

[Sukant Naik]

Hi Arturo,

By default the root user must be allowed to do a su to any account without prompting for a password.

I only suspect the /etc/default/security file or the /etc/nologin file.

Please do man security .

Just my two cents.
-Sukant

[Alex Glennie]

well it's not normal behaviour what's the O/S ? is nis or trusted systems involved here ?

I'd advise patching wrt su eg 11.00 PHC0_16127

[Charlie Rubeor]

It sounds like you are using DCE (Distributed Computing Environment.) If so, then I believe that you are stuck and will have to provide the password, even if you are logged in as root.

[Helen French]

Hi,

Your subject and the question gives some confusion. Normally 'su -' issued by root will not require a password. But if issued by another user, then it will prompt for the password.

If you are root, then check if any alias set for this command:

# alias

If 'su' invoked with -d option, then it will prompt for the password even if it is root. See man pages of su

HTH,
Shiju

[Mark Vollmers · Accepted solution]

the patch for the 10.20 OS is PHCO_14258

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/wpsl/bin/doc.pl/screen=wpslDisplayPatch/sid=7fdbb6520e70716fad

Mark

[Arturo Castaneda]

In fact I'm logged in as root, not as any other user, that's why it seems so strange to me that it prompts for the password. I'm using HP-UX 10.20

Best Regards.