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Full Discussion: SU vs. SU - root
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers SU vs. SU - root Post 302615595 by jlliagre on Thursday 29th of March 2012 09:49:58 PM
Old 03-29-2012
The original name is not obscure but well known.

The first "su" implementation was written by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson in 1971. From Unix version 1 to 6, this command meaning and purpose was "become super user".
eg: http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree...source/s2/su.c
Code:
/* su -- become super-user */

char    password[100];
char    pwbuf[100];
int    ttybuf[3];
main()
{

Its manual page stated:
Code:
NAME        su -- become privileged user
SYNOPSIS    su password
DESCRIPTION su allows one to become the super-user, who has
            all sorts of marvelous powers.

However, in version 7, the su command evolved to allow any account to be passed as an option. "su" started then to mean "substitute user".
Version 7 su manual page states
Code:
NAME
       su  -  substitute user id temporarily

SYNOPSIS
       su [ userid ]

"switch user" appeared only later, mostly in Gnu documents or source code, as a synonym of "substitute user.
 

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LEARN ABOUT MINIX

httppower

httppower(8)							     powerman							      httppower(8)

NAME

       httppower - communicate with HTTP based power distribution units

SYNOPSIS

       httppower [--url URL]

DESCRIPTION

       httppower  is  a  helper program for powerman which enables it to communicate with HTTP based power distribution units.	It is run interac-
       tively by the powerman daemon.

OPTIONS

       -u, --url URL
	      Set the base URL.

INTERACTIVE COMMANDS

       The following commands are accepted at the httppower> prompt:

       auth user:pass
	      Authenticate to the base URL with specified user and password, using ``basic'' HTTP authentication which sends the user and password
	      over the network in plain text.

       seturl URL
	      Set the base URL.  Overrides the command line option.

       get [URL-suffix]
	      Send an HTTP GET to the base URL with the optional URL-suffix appended.

       post [URL-suffix] key=val[&key=val]...
	      Send an HTTP POST to the base URL with the optional URL-suffix appended, and key-value pairs as argument.

FILES

       /usr/sbin/httppower
       /etc/powerman/powerman.conf

ORIGIN

       PowerMan was originally developed by Andrew Uselton on LLNL's Linux clusters.  This software is open source and distributed under the terms
       of the GNU GPL.

SEE ALSO

       powerman(1), powermand(8), httppower(8), plmpower(8), vpcd(8), powerman.conf(5), powerman.dev(5), powerman-devices(7).

       http://sourceforge.net/projects/powerman

powerman-2.3.5							    2009-02-09							      httppower(8)
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