Got the answer: An su to root creates the environment variable $USERNAME=root. The value of $USER is not changed. Leaving the superuser state (exit or ^D) removes $USERNAME.
This is a change in 8.2 which Mandrake users have NOT been responsibly notified of beforehand. What others are there? Ron Stodden wrote: > > What seems like another problem with 8.2 ... > > Security is standard. > > If I log in as user 'ron'. as is usual, and do: > > users > > I get: > > ron > > which is OK. If I now su to root, users does not change. It used to > say: > > ron root > > if I now say: > > whoami > > I get: > > root > > which is correct. > > If I now run a script, $USER delivers "ron", not the "root" which > previous Mandrakes delivered. > > So just exactly what is going on, please? > > Question: How do I get the current real user name from inside a bash > script? > > -- > Ron. [au] -- Ron. [au] Kindly note my new email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and new web site: http://www.ains.net.au/~ronst/
