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Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32

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Am Samstag 11 August 2018 schrieb Pétùr:
> Using 'su' generates now an path error when launching programs such as
> 'shutdown'. The cause is a new behavior described below. ---
> util-linux (2.32-0.4) unstable; urgency=medium
>
>   The util-linux implementation of /bin/su is now used, replacing the
>   one previously supplied by src:shadow (shipped in login package), and
>   bringing Debian in line with other modern distributions. The two
>   implementations are very similar but have some minor differences (and
>   there might be more that was not yet noticed ofcourse), e.g.
>
>   - new 'su' (with no args, i.e. when preserving the environment) also
>     preserves PATH and IFS, while old su would always reset PATH and IFS
>     even in 'preserve environment' mode.
>   - su '' (empty user string) used to give root, but now returns an error.
>   - previously su only had one pam config, but now 'su -' is configured
>     separately in /etc/pam.d/su-l
>
>   The first difference is probably the most user visible one. Doing
>   plain 'su' is a really bad idea for many reasons, so using 'su -' is
>   strongly recommended to always get a newly set up environment similar
>   to a normal login. If you want to restore behaviour more similar to
>   the previous one you can add 'ALWAYS_SET_PATH yes' in /etc/login.defs.
> ---
>
> The new 'su' is useless for me because it cannot launch root program.
> I did the modification in /etc/login.defs and restore the previous
> behavior. However I am concern with the statement " Doing plain 'su'
> is a really bad idea for many reasons".
>
> Could someone explain to me why this is a bad behavior?
>
> Pétùr

Hello Pétùr,

only recently until a couple days ago there was a lengthy discussion about just 
that. Have you missed that? Have a look in the archives for a subject line like 
this: "use of su vs sudo" ...

Kind regards,
Stefan

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Thread

New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Pétùr <peturvilj@gmail.com> - 2018-08-11 11:50 +0200
  Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Stefan Krusche <linux@stefan-krusche.de> - 2018-08-11 12:00 +0200
    Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-08-11 16:10 +0200
      Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Samuel Henrique <samueloph@debian.org> - 2018-08-11 17:50 +0200
      Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Pétùr <peturvilj@gmail.com> - 2018-08-11 18:00 +0200
        Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Curt <curty@free.fr> - 2018-08-11 19:10 +0200
  Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Nicolas George <george@nsup.org> - 2018-08-11 13:50 +0200
    Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Pétùr <peturvilj@gmail.com> - 2018-08-11 18:00 +0200
  Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Greg Wooledge <wooledg@eeg.ccf.org> - 2018-08-13 14:50 +0200
    Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2018-08-13 15:10 +0200
      Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de> - 2018-08-13 15:40 +0200
  Re: New su behavior in util-linux 2.32 Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2018-08-14 11:00 +0200

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