su help

[zsfhaergta]

Hi,

I know it is possible to set up sudo so a user enters his own password for root access. Is it possible to set up su to do the same?

Something like this

user$ su 'someotheruser'
Password: 'user's password'

NOT:
Password: 'someotheruser's password'

Thanks

 

[DonQuichote]

Not that I know of. But you should check the man page on this. However, you can do

sudo su

and have the same effect.

+++ Despite being wrong in every important aspect, that is a very good analogy +++
Hex (in Darwin's Watch)

 

[danomac]

I agree with DonQuichote that it isn't possible with su.

The only exception is when you are already running as a super user (root). In that case su would not prompt you for a password when you change UIDs.

The only way around this (which is probably not what you want) is to set up sudo so that certain users can su to root; after that point they can su <username> to a different user without a password.

 

[geirendre]

1. The user needs to be an administrator, or

2. If all users have the same password, they can do that. ;-)

 

[DonQuichote]

I don't know what you try to achieve, but if you just want a shell as another user (even as a user who does not have a shell, such as a web server user), you can do:

sudo -u [i]someotheruser[/i] bash

I did this trick to set up SSH keys and test connections for the web server user.

+++ Despite being wrong in every important aspect, that is a very good analogy +++
Hex (in Darwin's Watch)