Setup prompt from script

[Coolmar]

Hi,
When I "su" to root (I can't change the root .profile) I want to run the following to set things up the way I like....but it is not running. Any ideas?

#!/usr/bin/ksh

PS1="`whoami`@`uname -n`:\$PWD# ";export PS1
alias l="ls -la"

[spex]

Hi Coolmar,

Are you typing:
$ su root
or
$ su - root
?

PCS

[Coolmar]

su - root .... sorry, should have mentioned that.

[Peter Nikitka · Accepted solution]

Hi,

put your commands in a file 'my_settings' and then execute

. /path/to/my_settings

(there is a space between the dot and the pathname!).

mfG Peter

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

You have al that you need. Encapsulate your commands in a file as you show and when you have 'su'-ed to root, source (read) the file:

$ su root
# . ./mythings

Note the dot followed by a space, followed by your file's name.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Jonathan Fife]

You shouldn't be specifying a shebang (#!/path/to/shell) in the .profile, as it is sourced.

Other than that, are you sure you're modifying root's .profile? vi '~/.profile' if you're logged in as root. Usually you will see lines like " echo "WARNING: YOU ARE SUPERUSER !!\n"" -- do you see that warning when you log in as root?

[spex]

Hello again,

Note that you should never change root's shell from /sbin/sh.

Why can't you change ~root/.profile? As others have said, you should be able to place your customized settings in a separate file, and then source it by adding '. ' to the top of .profile. If you really are not able to modify .profile, you could change /etc/profile to selectively source the settings file when the user is root.

PCS

[Coolmar]

Can't change root's profile due to policy. That's just the way it is here.

I have it already in a script but didn't realize I had to put the "." then a space to run it.

Thanks!