>What you said makes sense. Except for one item, >Root directory - key word is directory not root. >The one item is if I am SU, does this automatically open >the root file or the directory? >Assuming I have it set for all access. If you 'su' without the dash, you become the root user (ie, user 'root'--basically the account which has all privileges) but it does not change to root's home directory (/root). (as stated in the man page for su: "Change the effective user id and group id to that of USER.") for example: mviron@wsdo ~ $ pwd /home/members/mviron mviron@wsdo ~ $ su Password: [root@wsdo mviron]# pwd /home/members/mviron [root@wsdo mviron]# whoami root [root@wsdo mviron]# whereas with su - (or -l or --login) mviron@wsdo ~ $ pwd /home/members/mviron mviron@wsdo ~ $ su - Password: [root@wsdo /root]# pwd /root [root@wsdo /root]# If you use -, -l, or --login <username> su acts as if you had just logged into the machine directly as <username>. There are three different 'root's on a unix platform which mean 3 totally different things: 1. The root directory (/) under which all other directories connect. 2. The root user, also known as the "Super-User", which has permission to do whatever you want to do (including removing all files on the hard drive), and is typically used for system administration (adding users, editing configurations and so forth). 3. The home directory for the root user (/root/) under which root's shell initialization and configuration settings are stored. The question then becomes which root are you talking about? As far as I am aware, there is no root file (unless you are considering the /root/ directory as a file). HTH, Michael -- Michael Viron Registered Linux User #81978 Senior Systems & Administration Consultant Web Spinners, University of West Florida
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