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

       If the PAM session is not required then recommended solution is to use setpriv(1) command.

       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
              Pass command to the shell with the -c option.

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

       -g, --group=group
              The primary group to be used.  This option is allowed for the root user only.

       -G, --supp-group=group
              Specify a supplemental group.  This option is available to the root user only.  The first specified supplementary group is also used
              as a primary group if the option --group is unspecified.

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

                 o      clears all the 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
              Preserve the entire environment, i.e. it does not set HOME, SHELL, USER nor LOGNAME.  The option is ignored if the option --login is
              specified.

       -s, --shell=shell
              Run 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.

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

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

       -h, --help
              Display help text 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 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

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

HISTORY

       This  runuser command was derived from coreutils' su, which was based on an implementation by David MacKenzie, and the Fedora runuser  com-
       mand by Dan Walsh.

AVAILABILITY

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

util-linux                                                           July 2014                                                          RUNUSER(1)