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Full Discussion: Basic Linux command line question
Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Basic Linux command line question Post 302993066 by drysdalk on Monday 6th of March 2017 12:19:17 PM
Old 03-06-2017
Hi,

OK, there are various things going here that perhaps need explaining. About the simplest way I can think of tackling your questions is to start with explaining what each of these commands actually does, which might help you understand what you're seeing a bit better.

pwd
This command will print out what's called your current working directory. Your working directory is the directory in the filesystem that you're in at the moment. You change directories with the..

cd
command. cd changes directories, and nothing else. So it's the command you use to change your working directory, and navigate around the filesystem.

su
The switch user command. Nearly always used as a regular user to switch to assume the permissions of the root user. root is the super-user account - that is, the account on a UNIX system that (usually) has full access to all directories and parts of the system, and has permission to run all commands.

Next, I think it would be helpful for you to realise there's a clear distinction between users and directories. Broadly speaking, every user on a UNIX system has one directory on the system reserved for their own use, called their home directory. Typing cd on its own will take you back to this home directory in almost all circumstances. But this home directory needn't have the same name as the user, and can be anything at all. Likewise, any directory on the system can take any name. Every directory on the filesystem will be owned by one particular user and one particular group.

Now, when you use su, the default behaviour will be to leave you in whatever directory you happen to be in at the time, rather than to switch you to the home directory of the user you're wanting to become. If you want it to do that (and more besides), try using the syntax su - instead. This will execute the full login environment of the user you're switching to, and so you will find your current working directory will change to their home directory.

Anyway, hope all this helps you to understand a bit more clearly what's going on here.
 

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

sss_useradd

SSS_USERADD(8)							 SSSD Manual pages						    SSS_USERADD(8)

NAME

       sss_useradd - create a new user

SYNOPSIS

       sss_useradd [options] LOGIN

DESCRIPTION

       sss_useradd creates a new user account using the values specified on the command line plus the default values from the system.

OPTIONS

       -u,--uid UID
	   Set the UID of the user to the value of UID. If not given, it is chosen automatically.

       -c,--gecos COMMENT
	   Any text string describing the user. Often used as the field for the user's full name.

       -h,--home HOME_DIR
	   The home directory of the user account. The default is to append the LOGIN name to /home and use that as the home directory. The base
	   that is prepended before LOGIN is tunable with "user_defaults/baseDirectory" setting in sssd.conf.

       -s,--shell SHELL
	   The user's login shell. The default is currently /bin/bash. The default can be changed with "user_defaults/defaultShell" setting in
	   sssd.conf.

       -G,--groups GROUPS
	   A list of existing groups this user is also a member of.

       -m,--create-home
	   Create the user's home directory if it does not exist. The files and directories contained in the skeleton directory (which can be
	   defined with the -k option or in the config file) will be copied to the home directory.

       -M,--no-create-home
	   Do not create the user's home directory. Overrides configuration settings.

       -k,--skel SKELDIR
	   The skeleton directory, which contains files and directories to be copied in the user's home directory, when the home directory is
	   created by sss_useradd.

	   Special files (block devices, character devices, named pipes and unix sockets) will not be copied.

	   This option is only valid if the -m (or --create-home) option is specified, or creation of home directories is set to TRUE in the
	   configuration.

       -Z,--selinux-user SELINUX_USER
	   The SELinux user for the user's login. If not specified, the system default will be used.

       -?,--help
	   Display help message and exit.

THE LOCAL DOMAIN

       In order to function correctly, a domain with "id_provider=local" must be created and the SSSD must be running.

       The administrator might want to use the SSSD local users instead of traditional UNIX users in cases where the group nesting (see
       sss_groupadd(8)) is needed. The local users are also useful for testing and development of the SSSD without having to deploy a full remote
       server. The sss_user* and sss_group* tools use a local LDB storage to store users and groups.

SEE ALSO

       sssd(8), sssd.conf(5), sssd-ldap(5), sssd-krb5(5), sssd-simple(5), sssd-ipa(5), sssd-ad(5), sssd-sudo(5),sss_cache(8), sss_debuglevel(8),
       sss_groupadd(8), sss_groupdel(8), sss_groupshow(8), sss_groupmod(8), sss_useradd(8), sss_userdel(8), sss_usermod(8), sss_obfuscate(8),
       sss_seed(8), sssd_krb5_locator_plugin(8), sss_ssh_authorizedkeys(8), sss_ssh_knownhostsproxy(8),pam_sss(8).

AUTHORS

       The SSSD upstream - http://fedorahosted.org/sssd

SSSD
								    06/17/2014							    SSS_USERADD(8)
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