Hi Linda,
On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 03:12:56PM -0800, Linda Walsh wrote:
>
> "su --preserve_environment - username" no longer preserves
> your REMOTEHOST and DISPLAY values. They should be
> in the same class as 'TERM', as they are passed from the
> pre-login environment.
>
> I don't know if there are other values that shouldn't be
> removed -- but it is bad to clear the environment just
> because one wants a shell called with '-<shell>'.
Please, when you call a problem "regression" then it would be nice
to know which version was correct... because util-linxu su(1) is code
from coreutils and I see in the original code as well as in the
current code:
if (simulate_login) {
... reset environment ...
} else if (change_environment) {
... modify HOME, SHELL, ...
}
it means that --login and --preserve-environment has been always
mutually exclusive and the latest version prints wanning when the
options are use together. It's also described in the man page.
> The preserve environment flag is NOT incompatible with login.
> It means don't clear the env, but do call login via -<shell>.
>
> -p means don't clear the ENV -- but do call the user's shell
> with a '-' in front of it. That has always been the functionality
> of 'su'.
>
> If you want to make 'su' fancier, maybe it needs a "/etc/suers.conf"
> file so specific values can be easily changed to reflect
> site policy rather than hard coding them.
It would be probably better to use PAM for such things.
Karel
--
Karel Zak <kzak@xxxxxxxxxx>
http://karelzak.blogspot.com
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