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switch user (su) not sourcing the profile

 
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# 1  
Old 09-05-2012
switch user (su) not sourcing the profile
Usually in solaris/Linux servers , when you do an su - username (space before and after the hyphen) the user's .profile should get sourced. But in the below linux machine it is not. As you see below ORACLE_HOME variable is not being set.

Code:
# uname -a
Linux revaltb214 2.6.18-238.el5 #1 SMP Sun Dec 19 14:22:44 EST 2010 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
#
# cat /etc/redhat-release
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server release 5.6 (Tikanga)
#
# whoami
root
#
#
# echo #0
-bash
#
# su - oracle                   # ------> it is supposed to source oracle's .profie at this step
$
$ echo $ORACLE_HOME

$ pwd
/home/oracle

$ cat .profile
export ORACLE_HOME=/u07/oracle/11.2/client
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/bin:/usr/bin:/home/oracle/bin:/u07/oracle/11.2/client/bin:.
export TNS_ADMIN=$ORACLE_HOME/network/admin
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$ORACLE_HOME:/lib:/usr/lib

$ . .profile                        # --------> I had to manually source the profile

$ echo $ORACLE_HOME
/u07/oracle/11.2/client

# 2  
Old 09-05-2012
Not all shells use ~/.profile. It might be looking in ~/.bashrc and the like. BASH often comes with a ~/.bashrc that reads ~/.profile but for root things might be left raw.
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
John K
# 3  
Old 09-05-2012
Ok. Got it. Thank you Corona.

How can I get both root and other OS users to use Korn Shell by default ?
# 4  
Old 09-05-2012
It is part of /etc/passwd - usually /bin/ksh. Please note, a lot of Linux boxes do not have ksh. DO NOT change root. root uses /bin/sh which is linked statically. The system may not reboot if you change it.

/bin/sh may well be bash but it will be linked so that root can boot a system without libc.so available.

Code:
usermod -s /bin/ksh  username

This User Gave Thanks to jim mcnamara For This Post:
John K
# 5  
Old 09-05-2012
Quote:
# su - oracle # ------> it is supposed to source oracle's .profie at this step
$
$ echo $ORACLE_HOME
The su - starts a new Shell. Any environment variables set in that Shell will not be available to the parent Shell.

The way you are sourcing the script [/icode]. .profile[/icode] is the correct approach though I would use a separate script rather than the profile file. If the profile script contains commands which require a terminal (e.g. stty) then it becomes unsuitable for sourcing in background scripts.
# 6  
Old 09-05-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by jim mcnamara
DO NOT change root. root uses /bin/sh which is linked statically.

/bin/sh may well be bash but it will be linked so that root can boot a system without libc.so available.
On RHEL, /bin/sh is a symbolic link to /bin/bash which is a dynamically (not statically) linked executable.
# 7  
Old 09-05-2012
fpmurphy -
Okay, then how can root run shell without libc? Does RHEL mount /lib somehow without a shell?
 
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