Shell confusion

Tim ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Fri Mar 13 02:10:20 UTC 2009


On Fri, 2009-03-13 at 01:25 +0000, Dave Bolt IT Solutions wrote:
> When I start a terminal as dave I get a prompt [dave at Test-Host ~]$
> When I do su amandabackup I get a prompt bash-3.2$

The prompt display is configured per user, the amandabackup user appears
to not have any configuration.  You can see the same thing by creating a
new user, and wiping out *all* the files and directories in their
homespace, but most specifically, the dot-prefixed bash files
(.bash_profile &/or .bashrc).

> From the first prompt I can launch gedit, from the second I get an error, No 
> protocol specified, gedit:4724, Gtk-WARNING ** cannot open display.

My guess might be that the amandabackup user doesn't have a homespace,
or points to one with permissions or SELinux restrictions preventing it
being used as normal homespace.

> Since both of these users are apparently configured for bash, can anyone 
> explain what is happening?

They're *probably* not, bash is *probably* the default, in the absence
of configuration to the contrary.

I saw a similar thing (shell prompts & disallowed displays) when I did
an experiment of trying to use a FAT32 formatted USB memory stick as the
homespace for a new user.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.19-78.2.30.fc9.i686

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