Users 'su'-ing to another userid

[Don Bentz]

I have a group of people who log in with a common userid. I want them to log in as themselves and then "su -" to this common userid, but I'd like to be able somehow to retain their own shell history files? Is this possible?

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Don,

If you set them up with a script to do the su'ing, yes. Just have the script export HISTFILE=$HOME/`whoami`.hist before the su and make sure that the profile of the common user doesn't reset it. I think that should do it.


Pete

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi Don,

Something like this

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?admit=716493758+1108048020120+28353475&threadId=68020

Regards,
Robert-Jan

[Don Bentz]

Excellent, Thanks Pete.

[Pete Randall]

The only complication I can think of is if the login process (invoked by the minus in su -) would cause the HISTFILE to be reset. In that case have the script export HISTORY, then su, then set HISTFILE to the value of HISTORY.


Pete

[Robert Salter]

Working off of Pete's suggestion, you could put this in the common id's .profile

set `who am i`
HISTFILE=$HOME/.history-$1
HISTSIZE=nnn... etc etc

It would create a .history-userid for whoever does "su - " and would their very own.

[Steven E. Protter]

loguser=$(who am i | awk '{print $1}')

HISTFILE=$HOME/$loguser.history


I like this methodology.

SEP

[Robert Salter]

If you want to help prod your folks into logging in as themselves and then 'su -'ing create a file with the common userid in it, like /var/adm/.idno

Add the following to your /etc/profile

LOGNAME=`who am i | awk '{print $1}'`
grep $LOGNAME /var/adm/.idno > /dev/null
if [ $? = 0 ]
then
clear
echo "DIRECT LOGIN WITH THIS ID NOT ALLOWED"
echo "Login with your id and then su to $LOGNAME"
exit
fi

[John Dvorchak]

Here is what we do for the root account so we keep our own history file. I put this in the /root/.profile but you can put it in the shared users home directory instead.:

# sets .sh_hist file to id of user

if [ "`tty`" = "/dev/console" ]
then
REAL=console
else
REAL=`logname`
fi


HISTFILE=$HOME/.sh_$REAL