RUNUSER

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: December 2009
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NAME

runuser - run a shell with substitute user and group IDs

SYNOPSIS

runuser [OPTION]... [-] [USER [ARG]...]

DESCRIPTION

Change the effective user id and group id to that of USER. Only session PAM hooks are run, and there is no password prompt. This command is useful only when run as the root user. If run as a non-root user without privilege to set user ID, the command will fail as the binary is not setuid. As runuser doesn't run auth and account PAM hooks, it runs with lower overhead than su.

-, -l, --login: make the shell a login shell, uses runuser-l PAM file instead of default one
-g --group=group: specify the primary group
-G --supp-group=group: specify a supplemental group
-c, --command=COMMAND: pass a single COMMAND to the shell with -c
--session-command=COMMAND: pass a single COMMAND to the shell with -c and do not create a new session
-f, --fast: pass -f to the shell (for csh or tcsh)
-m, --preserve-environment: do not reset environment variables
-p: same as -m
-s, --shell=SHELL: run SHELL if /etc/shells allows it
--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

A mere - implies -l. If USER not given, assume root.

AUTHOR

Written by David MacKenzie, Dan Walsh.

REPORTING BUGS

Report runuser bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.