Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: rbowman Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc Subject: Re: =?UTF-8?B?4oCcV2hhdA==?= a Linux root user can do - and 8 ways you should absolutely never use =?UTF-8?B?aXTigJ0=?= Date: 22 Jan 2026 20:13:55 GMT Lines: 24 Message-ID: References: <10koqeb$1i9u5$2@dont-email.me> <10kpar0$1nlc1$1@dont-email.me> <10kq97r$31q7d$1@news1.tnib.de> <10kroo0$2hv00$3@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: individual.net Fo6OQ8TeNZoN1GZ6w+fGiAfYNYZfXC5M1MVKx6rhWaxNZZsczP Cancel-Lock: sha1:O8cFz9mbeYDHrnVmj46b3fqqInM= sha256:JzT1+mHjMpkONYPPN0W+/JFdICemxvZOhDCmqAZbjLM= User-Agent: Pan/0.162 (Pokrosvk) Xref: csiph.com comp.os.linux.misc:81510 On Thu, 22 Jan 2026 14:45:34 +0100, Ralf Fassel wrote: > * rbowman > | [...] 'sudo su' required my password and I become root. > > I thought that was what "sudo -i" was for, but there might be subtle > differences w/ regards to which login-specific files are read. > > R' Force of habit? -i works. I very seldom use the option and didn't know about -i. I don't remember the timeline but when I first started using Linux you would set a root password. 'su' would ask for that password and you would become root. It's been a long time but iirc there was a flag so you could retain your user environment which was handy if you had a lot of aliases. Then when the root account was locked and didn't have a password 'su' wouldn't work but 'sudo su' seemed logical and it works. One twist is 'sudo su' leaves you in the same directory where 'sudo -i' puts you in / root.