RUNUSER(1)							   User Commands							RUNUSER(1)

NAME

       runuser - run a command with substitute user and group ID

SYNOPSIS

       runuser [options] -u user command [argument...]

       runuser [options] [-] [ user [argument...]  ]

DESCRIPTION

       runuser allows to run commands with substitute user and group ID.  If the option -u not given, fallback to su compatible semantic and shell
       is executed.  The difference between the commands runuser and su is that runuser does not ask for password (because it may be  executed	by
       root user only) and it uses a different PAM configuration.  The command runuser does not have to be installed with suid permissions.

       When called without arguments runuser defaults to running an interactive shell as root.

       For  backward  compatibility  runuser defaults to not change the current directory and to only set the environment variables HOME and SHELL
       (plus USER and LOGNAME if the target user is not root).	This version of runuser uses PAM for session management.

OPTIONS

       -c command, --command=command
	      Pass command to the shell with the -c option.

       --session-command=command
	      Same as -c but do not create a new session (discouraged).

       -f, --fast
	      Pass -f to the shell which may or may not be useful depending on the shell.

       -g, --group=group
	      specify the primary group, this option is allowed for root user only

       -G, --supp-group=group
	      specify a supplemental group, this option is allowed for root user only

       -, -l, --login
	      Starts the shell as login shell with an environment similar to a real login:

		 o	clears all environment variables except for TERM

		 o	initializes the environment variables HOME, SHELL, USER, LOGNAME, PATH

		 o	changes to the target user's home directory

		 o	sets argv[0] of the shell to '-' in order to make the shell a login shell

       -m, -p, --preserve-environment
	      Preserves the whole environment, ie does not set HOME, SHELL, USER nor LOGNAME.  The option is ignored  if  the  option  --login	is
	      specified.

       -s SHELL, --shell=SHELL
	      Runs the specified shell instead of the default.	The shell to run is selected according to the following rules in order:

		 o	the shell specified with --shell

		 o	The shell specified in the environment variable SHELL if the --preserve-environment option is used.

		 o	the shell listed in the passwd entry of the target user

		 o	/bin/sh

	      If  the  target  user has a restricted shell (i.e. not listed in /etc/shells) the --shell option and the SHELL environment variables
	      are ignored unless the calling user is root.

       --help Display help text and exit.

       --version
	      Display version information and exit.

CONFIG FILES

       runuser reads the /etc/default/runuser and /etc/login.defs configuration  files.   The  following  configuration  items	are  relevant  for
       runuser:

       ENV_PATH (string)
	   Defines the PATH environment variable for a regular user.  The default value is /usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin.

       ENV_ROOTPATH (string)
       ENV_SUPATH (string)
	   Defines the PATH environment variable for root. The default value is /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin.

       ALWAYS_SET_PATH (boolean)
	   If set to yes and --login and --preserve-environment were not specified runuser initializes PATH.

EXIT STATUS

       runuser	normally returns the exit status of the command it executed.  If the command was killed by a signal, runuser returns the number of
       the signal plus 128.

       Exit status generated by runuser itself:

		 1	Generic error before executing the requested command

		 126	The requested command could not be executed

		 127	The requested command could was not found

FILES

       /etc/pam.d/runuser
			default PAM configuration file
       /etc/pam.d/runuser-l
			PAM configuration file if --login is specified
       /etc/default/runuser
			runuser specific logindef config file
       /etc/login.defs	global logindef config file

SEE ALSO

       pam(8), shells(5), login.defs(5), su(1)

AUTHOR

       Derived from coreutils' su which was based on an implemenation from David MacKenzie and Fedora runuser command from Dan Walsh.

AVAILABILITY

       The runuser command is part of the util-linux package and is available  from  Linux  Kernel  Archive  <ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils
       /util-linux/>.

util-linux							    August 2012 							RUNUSER(1)