Date: Tue, 27 Jul 1999 00:54:37 -0400 (EDT) From: "Crist J. Clark" <cjc@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> To: baram@home.com Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: su segfaults, why? Message-ID: <199907270454.AAA08363@cc942873-a.ewndsr1.nj.home.com> In-Reply-To: <19990727040638.MXRL10688.mail.rdc1.tx.home.com@c74763-a> from "baram@home.com" at "Jul 26, 99 10:06:34 pm"
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baram@home.com wrote,
> Hello,
> I have tried executing fetchmail as a user from /usr/local/etc/rc.d
> and noticed that it would segfault. So i tried the following from
> command line: (writing this from memory..)
> # su user '/usr/local/bin/fetchmail'
> segfault (core dumped)
> # su user uptime
> segfault (core dumped)
> If user shell is zsh, then the core file is left in ~user directory,
> otherwise there is none..So, is this an incorrect usage of su on my
> part? I am running 3.2-STABLE from around July 7th.
Yes, this is an incorrect usage. Look at the su(1) manpage,
SYNOPSIS
su [-Kflm] [-c class] [login [args]]
.
.
.
If the optional args are provided on the command line, they are passed to
the login shell of the target login.
(Wow, this manpage is a mess![*])
So, if you enter,
# su user '/usr/local/bin/fetchmail'
You are essentially doing (assuming 'user's default shell is zsh),
% zsh '/usr/local/bin/fetchmail'
As the user 'user.'
Now, I'm not a zsh user, but I know both sh and csh would treat
/usr/local/bin/fetchmail as a _shell script._ I assume zsh does the
same.
What you actually want to do is,
# su -l user -c /usr/local/bin/fetchmail
[*] The docs on the '-c' switch in the description do not match its
usage in the examples. The switch seems to work like it does in
the examples. I'll file a PR after I check if this has not already
been pointed out.
--
Crist J. Clark cjclark@home.com
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