runuser — run a command with substitute user and group ID
runuser [options]
−u user command [
argument... ]
runuser [options]
[−] [ user [ argument...
] ]
runuser
allows to run commands with a substitute user and group ID.
If the option −u is not
given, it falls back to su-compatible semantics and
a shell is executed. The difference between the commands
runuser and
su is that
runuser does
not ask for a password (because it may be executed by the
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.
−c,
−−command=commandPass command
to the shell with the −c option.
−f,
−−fastPass −f to the
shell, which may or may not be useful depending on the
shell.
−g,
−−group=groupThe primary group to be used. This option is allowed for the root user only.
−G,
−−supp−group=groupSpecify 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, −−loginStart the shell as a login shell with an environment similar to a real login:
oclears all the environment variables except for
TERMoinitializes the environment variables
HOME,SHELL,USER,LOGNAME,PATHochanges to the target user's home directory
osets argv[0] of the shell to '
−' in order to make the shell a login shell
−m,
−p,
−−preserve−environmentPreserve the entire environment, i.e. it does not
set HOME, SHELL, USER nor LOGNAME. The option is ignored if the
option −−login
is specified.
−s,
−−shell=shellRun the specified shell instead of the default. The shell to run is selected according to the following rules, in order:
othe shell specified with
−−shellothe shell specified in the environment variable
SHELLif the−−preserve−environmentoption is usedothe shell listed in the passwd entry of the target user
o/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.
−−session−command=commandSame as −c , but
do not create a new session. (Discouraged.)
−V,
−−versionDisplay version information and exit.
−h,
−−helpDisplay help text and exit.
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.
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:
1Generic error before executing the requested command
126The requested command could not be executed
127The requested command was not found
/etc/pam.d/runuserdefault PAM configuration file
/etc/pam.d/runuser-lPAM configuration file if −−login is specified
/etc/default/runuserrunuser specific logindef config file
/etc/login.defsglobal logindef config file
This runuser command was derived from coreutils' su, which was based on an implementation by David MacKenzie, and the Fedora runuser command by Dan Walsh.
The runuser command is part of the util-linux package and is available from Linux Kernel Archive
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