From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Kevin Rodgers Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: What does the minus sign - do?... in the command sudo su - Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 07:09:20 -0600 Message-ID: References: <5izjr1w95n.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> <68D42ACF-5DB1-40CA-8BC4-02E152CCADFF@Web.DE> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1380115266 32694 80.91.229.3 (25 Sep 2013 13:21:06 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 13:21:06 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Sep 25 15:21:08 2013 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VOp1g-0005eV-JH for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:21:08 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52651 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VOp1g-0002XI-57 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:21:08 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54769) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VOoqb-00033C-Ce for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:09:49 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VOoqS-0004CD-PL for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:09:41 -0400 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:38132) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1VOoqS-0004Bq-It for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 09:09:32 -0400 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1VOoqR-0004p6-48 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:09:31 +0200 Original-Received: from 70-59-0-106.hlrn.qwest.net ([70.59.0.106]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:09:31 +0200 Original-Received: from kevin.d.rodgers by 70-59-0-106.hlrn.qwest.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:09:31 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 26 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: 70-59-0-106.hlrn.qwest.net User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.4; en-US; rv:1.9.2.28) Gecko/20120306 Thunderbird/3.1.20 In-Reply-To: <68D42ACF-5DB1-40CA-8BC4-02E152CCADFF@Web.DE> X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:93564 Archived-At: On 9/25/13 3:27 AM, Peter Dyballa wrote: > > Am 25.09.2013 um 11:19 schrieb Don Saklad: > >> What does the minus sign - do?... in the command >> >> sudo su - > > (Almost) Nothing. It just opens a shell… Actually, it tells su to start a login shell (as opposed to a shell that inherits the current environment: -l Simulate a full login. The environment is discarded except for HOME, SHELL, PATH, TERM, and USER. HOME and SHELL are modified as above. USER is set to the target login. PATH is set to ``/bin:/usr/bin''. TERM is imported from your current environ- ment. The invoked shell is the target login's, and su will change directory to the target login's home directory. This option is identical to just passing "-", as in "su -". `M-x man' is your friend. -- Kevin Rodgers Denver, Colorado, USA