Chown ???
Sjoerd Mullender
sjoerd at acm.org
Wed Apr 8 14:42:27 UTC 2009
g wrote:
> Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
>
>> The original meaning of 'su' is 'superuser'. You can find it in Unix
>> manuals from the 1970s. 'Substitute user' is a lame back-formation from
>> when the command was extended to allow changing effective id's to any
>> user and not just root.
>
> i am not in disagreement with this as i used *unix* in it's early form. my early unix
> manuals are buried too deep to get to, so i can not quote from them or find when
> change came about.
>
> but this is not *unix*, we are discussing *linux*. in *linux*, the command 'su' is
> 'substitute user or group'.
>
> in *linux*, 'su' gives a user who knows 'root' password, ability to become _any_user_
> or a member of _any_group_. therefore, i again say, command 'su' is not 'super user'.
>
> so if i give command 'su poc' or 'su paul', i do not become a 'superuser'. i simply
> become user 'poc' or user 'paul'.
>
>> DOS systems have no concept of user privilege, and hence have no concept
>> of superuser. Windows systems do have user privileges but AFAIK they
>> don't use the superuser terminology.
>
> *msdos* systems and *ms windows* have very little concept of anything.
>
>
My Version 7 Unix manual (i.e. 7th edition Unix, 1979) says:
su - substitute user id temporarily
My 4.3 BSD user manual says the same thing.
My 9th edition unix manual says:
su, setlog - substitute userid temporarily, become super user
And on Fedora 10, the manual says:
su - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs
In all cases, the user name is an optional argument and defaults to
"root" (i.e. the super user).
--
Sjoerd Mullender
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