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  4. runuser(1)

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RUNUSER(1) User Commands RUNUSER(1)

NAME

runuser - run a command with substitute user and group ID

SYNOPSIS

runuser [options] -u user command [argument...]

runuser [options] [-] [ user [argument...] ]

DESCRIPTION

runuser allows to run commands with substitute user and group ID. If the option -u not given, fallback to su compatible semantic and shell is executed. The difference between the commands runuser and su is that runuser does not ask for password (because it may be executed by root user only) and it uses a different PAM configuration. The command runuser does not have to be installed with suid permissions.

When called without arguments runuser defaults to running an interactive shell as root.

For backward compatibility runuser defaults to not change the current directory and to only set the environment variables HOME and SHELL (plus USER and LOGNAME if the target user is not root). This version of runuser uses PAM for session management.

OPTIONS

Pass command to the shell with the -c option.
Same as -c but do not create a new session (discouraged).
Pass -f to the shell which may or may not be useful depending on the shell.
specify the primary group, this option is allowed for root user only
Specify a supplemental group. This option is available to the root user only. The first specified supplementary group is also used as a primary group if the option --group is unspecified.
-, -l, --login
Starts the shell as login shell with an environment similar to a real login:
clears all environment variables except for TERM
initializes the environment variables HOME, SHELL, USER, LOGNAME, PATH
changes to the target user's home directory
sets argv[0] of the shell to '-' in order to make the shell a login shell
Preserves the whole environment, ie does not set HOME, SHELL, USER nor LOGNAME. The option is ignored if the option --login is specified.
Runs the specified shell instead of the default. The shell to run is selected according to the following rules in order:
the shell specified with --shell
The shell specified in the environment variable SHELL if the --preserve-environment option is used.
the shell listed in the passwd entry of the target user
/bin/sh
If the target user has a restricted shell (i.e. not listed in /etc/shells) the --shell option and the SHELL environment variables are ignored unless the calling user is root.
Display help text and exit.
Display version information and exit.

CONFIG FILES

runuser reads the /etc/default/runuser and /etc/login.defs configuration files. The following configuration items are relevant for runuser:

ENV_PATH (string)

Defines the PATH environment variable for a regular user. The default value is /usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin.

ENV_ROOTPATH (string)
ENV_SUPATH (string)

Defines the PATH environment variable for root. The default value is /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin.

ALWAYS_SET_PATH (boolean)

If set to yes and --login and --preserve-environment were not specified runuser initializes PATH.

EXIT STATUS

runuser normally returns the exit status of the command it executed. If the command was killed by a signal, runuser returns the number of the signal plus 128.

Exit status generated by runuser itself:

1
Generic error before executing the requested command
126
The requested command could not be executed
127
The requested command could was not found

FILES

/etc/pam.d/runuser
default PAM configuration file
/etc/pam.d/runuser-l
PAM configuration file if --login is specified
/etc/default/runuser
runuser specific logindef config file
/etc/login.defs
global logindef config file

SEE ALSO

pam(8), shells(5), login.defs(5), su(1)

AUTHOR

Derived from coreutils' su which was based on an implemenation from David MacKenzie and Fedora runuser command from Dan Walsh.

AVAILABILITY

The runuser command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive.

August 2012 util-linux