IIRC: 'su' uses the profile (on redhat it's the .bashrc and .bash_profile) of the user you start as. 'su -l <user>' uses the profile of the user you are going to (be it root or some other user, the -l means login). 'su -l' without a user specified is equivalent to 'su -l root' 'su -' without a command switch specified is equivalent to 'su -l' This is important because normally, users have a different command path than root. If you're a normal user and you su to root but you don't specify the - or -l or even --login (they are all equivalent), you don't get root's command path. You can still run all of the root commands, you just need to know and specify the full path to those commands. If you're root and you su to another user without using the -l, you've still got root's command path, but you may not have the normal userspace command path. You also don't have proper permissions to use most of the commands in large parts of root's command path (/sbin for example). For those new users out there, doing an su -l from a user account will ask you for the password of the user your are going to. Doing an su -l from root to a user account will not ask you for the user's password. su is a very powerful command, understanding it can be very useful. Jeff On Mon, 12 Jan 2004, rick wrote: > >There is no significant difference between logging into root, and doing > >su from a user account. The difference is very unlikely to cause what > >(I think) you are describing. > > I'm sure you know this Ken but just to keep things clear for others, one > difference comes into play if the user types "su -" instead of "su". At > the moment I don't have access to a Linux box :-( to quote fromt the man > page but IIRC, "su -" causes the profile to be run/sourced. I agree > that, in this case it's unlikely to cause the problem described. The > reason I mention this difference is that I have seen it confuse newbies. > > Rick (in Baltimore this week) Meyerhoff > > > _______________________________________________ > TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota > http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list > _______________________________________________ TCLUG Mailing List - Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota http://www.mn-linux.org tclug-list at mn-linux.org https://mailman.real-time.com/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list