su command broken in RedHat9?

[Eric Chevalier]

I've just noticed that the su command in RedHat 9 does not seem to 
process the shell option the same way as earlier RH Linux versions. 
Specifically, the presence of the shell ("-s") argument seems to cause 
the User-ID to be ignored.

For example, in Red Hat 8:

   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# su - news
   -sh-2.05b$ whoami
   news
   -sh-2.05b$ exit
   logout
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# su -s /bin/bash - news
   -bash-2.05b$ whoami
   news
   -bash-2.05b$ exit
   logout
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# whoami
   root
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]#
Notice that both invocations of su shown above cause the shell to be run 
as user "news".

On the other hand, here's what's happening on my RH9 system:

   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# su - news
   -sh-2.05b$ whoami
   news
   -sh-2.05b$ exit
   logout
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# su -s /bin/bash - news
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# whoami
   root
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# exit
   exit
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# whoami
   root
   [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]#
In this case, adding the -s argument to su seems to cause the user-id 
"news" to be ignored.

I'm concerned about this change in behavior because the /etc/init.d/innd 
script kicks of the innd process by the command:

   initlog -q -c 'su -s /bin/bash - news -c "/etc/rc.news"'

I believe that the su anomaly is causing the innd process to be run as 
user "root" rather than "news" and is causing the news process to hang 
somewhere in its startup processing. (I'm still researching that problem.)

Has anyone else noticed this su behavior in RH9?

Eric

--
Eric Chevalier                          E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
                                          Web: www.tulsagrammer.com
   Is that call really worth your child's life?  HANG UP AND DRIVE!


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