Re: Runs fine on cmd line but not in cron

On Tue, 20 Jun 2000, Jim Harrison wrote:

> Tom Phoenix <rootbeer_at_redcat.com> wrote in message
> news:Pine.GSO.4.10.10006181013480.29843-100000_at_user2.teleport.com...
> > On Sun, 18 Jun 2000, John wrote:
> >
> > > Your cron job could run a shell script which just does an su -c <user>
> > > to run the shell script you really want to run under a user which has
> > > the right environment already.
> >
> > It's probably not wise or possible to run that program as the superuser.
> > And will that make a login shell? Probably not by default. Of course, if
> > you're going to run a shell script, it should be simple to source the
> > initialization file and be done with it; there's no need to run as root
> > and then use 'su'. Oh, well!
 

> The words stick and wrong end come to mind.

The word "huh?" comes to mind. :-)

> The su command also allows you to log in as any UNIX user not just
> root as you suggest!

Maybe I was unclear. A non-root user can't "log in" with 'su' as any other user from a shell script, as a password would be required. Although root could get away without using a password, it is "probably not wise or possible to run that program as the superuser." Right?

> I believe John was suggesting logging into another user account.

I do, too. I just don't think it's the right thing to do, if it's even possible.

Cheers!

-- 
Tom Phoenix       Perl Training and Hacking       Esperanto
Randal Schwartz Case:     http://www.rahul.net/jeffrey/ovs/