Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 21:35:33 +0200 From: Cliff Sarginson <cliff@raggedclown.net> To: Bsd Newbie <bsdneophyte@yahoo.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: difference between su and root? Message-ID: <20010905213533.A4295@raggedclown.net> In-Reply-To: <20010905185625.14061.qmail@web20103.mail.yahoo.com>; from bsdneophyte@yahoo.com on Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 11:56:25AM -0700 References: <20010905185625.14061.qmail@web20103.mail.yahoo.com>
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On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 11:56:25AM -0700, Bsd Newbie wrote: > > Are there any differences between the two... or is su another way of > saying root? > > -Sameer > You log in as root at the login prompt. If you are logged in as an normal mortal and know the root password you can log in as root with "su". "su" means "set user" and you can su to any user login name that you have the password for. If you are root you can su to anybody without their password. There is a little more to it than that, there is a flag "-" which causes "su" to execute profiles etc as though you had logged on at the login prompt. Read man su for more explanation. Security dictates the disallowing of network logins as root; typically you will log in as yourself and then su to root if you need to do system maintenance tasks. Cliff To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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