Commands using su sorted by votes

Commands using su (17)

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Change user, assume environment, stay in current dir

I've used this a number of times troubleshooting user permissions. Instead of just 'su - user' you can throw another hyphen and stay in the original directory. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[root@localhost local]# pwd
/usr/local
[root@localhost local]# su -- user
[user@localhost local]$ pwd
/usr/local
[user@localhost local]$
```
13

su -- user

matthewdavis · 2009-09-28 04:23:43 8

Propagate X session cookies on a different user and login as that user

Reads a username from Show Sample Output

read -p 'Username: ' u;sudo -H -u $u xauth add $(xauth list|grep :$(echo ${DISPLAY: -4:2}));sudo su - $u

vutcovici · 2009-04-02 13:24:53 8

Get a shell with a not available account

Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
[root@XXX ~]# su - nobody
This account is currently not available.
[root@XXX ~]# su - nobody -s /bin/sh -c "/bin/sh"
sh-3.2$ id
uid=99(nobody) gid=99(nobody) grupos=99(nobody) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023
```
3

su - <user> -s /bin/sh -c "/bin/sh"

nablas · 2009-06-25 15:36:04 12
resume other user's screen session via su, without pty error

Normally, if you su to another user from root and try to resume that other user's screen session, you will get an error like "Cannot open your terminal '/dev/pts/0' - please check." This is because the other user doesn't have permission for root's pty. You can get around this by running a "script" session as the new user, before trying to resume the screen session. Note you will have to execute each of the three commands separately, not all on the same line as shown here. Credit: I found this at http://www.hjackson.org/blog/archives/2008/11/29/cannot-open-your-terminal-dev-pts-please-check.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

# su - <user> ; script /dev/null ; screen -r

dmmst19 · 2011-07-04 16:26:10 8
Run the last command as root

Same as `sudo !!`. If you do not have permission to be sudo or sudo does not installed on your system, you can use this.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
3

su -c "!!"

mesuutt · 2012-02-21 15:38:30 10
Deploy git server repo

After, check if working by executing this command locally : git clone git@192.168.0.18:repositories/gitosis-admin.git Tutorial : http://blog.hemca.com/?p=560
This is sample output - yours may be different.
2

apt-get -y install git-core gitosis; adduser --home /home/git --gecos "git user" git; su git -c "ssh-keygen -t rsa -f /home/git/.ssh/id_rsa; gitosis-init < ~/.ssh/id_rsa"

strzel_a · 2010-12-19 20:37:12 6
Change user within ssh session retaining the current MIT cookie for X-forwarding

When you remotely log in like "ssh -X userA:host" and become a different user with "su UserB", X-forwarding will not work anymore since /home/UserB/.Xauthority does not exist. This will use UserA's information stored in .Xauthority for UserB to enable X-forwarding. Watch http://prefetch.net/blog/index.php/2008/04/05/respect-my-xauthority/ for details.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

su username -c "xauth add ${HOSTNAME}/unix:${DISPLAY//[a-zA-Z:_-]/} $(xauth list | grep -o '[a-zA-Z0-9_-]*\ *[0-9a-zA-Z]*$'); bash"

michelsberg · 2010-04-02 10:08:25 7
Run command from another user and return to current
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

su - $user -c <command>

octopus · 2010-04-16 13:17:02 4
start a VNC server for another user
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

su -c "vncserver -depth 32 -geometry 1024x768" username

maarten · 2010-08-05 17:58:01 7
change user & preserver environment (.bashrc&co)
This is sample output - yours may be different.
1

su - -m -p git

strzel_a · 2010-12-19 20:02:18 4
Mount a truecrypt drive from a file from the command line non-interactively

This is useful for use in scripts. Note that this will leak your password to ps, so this shouldn't be used on shared machines. Use key files for this
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

su -c "truecrypt --non-interactive truecrypt-file cryptshare -p PASSWORD"

tatwright · 2009-05-22 21:11:29 4
Clear RAM cache
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

su -c 'sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches'

xmuda · 2013-01-23 22:18:45 8
Export a postgresql query into csv file

This command will "su" the execution of the command to the postgres user(implies that you are already logger as root), and export the result of the query to a file on the csv format. You'll need to adequate the fields and database information to one of your choice/need. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
head -3 /tmp/mails.csv

2012-09-24 10:00:11.470321,sender@domainsender.com,"dest1@domain.com, dest2@domain.com",Alert:one host is down
2012-09-24 10:45:10.920158,sender@domainsender.com,"dest1@domain.com, dest2@domain.com",Alert:three hosts are down
2012-09-24 10:50:03.736794,sender@domainsender.com,"dest1@domain.com, dest2@domain.com",Alert:one host is down
```
0

# su -c "psql -d maillog -c \"copy (select date,sender,destination,subject from maillog where destination like '%domain.com%') to '/tmp/mails.csv' with csv;\" " postgres

Risthel · 2013-02-13 13:03:17 5
To recycle the JVM from application server, steps are as follows:-
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

su - wsadmin

vidya99343 · 2013-07-22 08:36:48 11
Start a new shell as another user without know the password.

You must be root. It asks for your password. Alternative: sudo -i -u <user> If you are not root, but you know the password of the other user: su <user>
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

sudo su <user>

rlebron · 2015-12-15 19:33:27 10
Write shell script without opening an editor

In this example, I’m creating a wrapper for apt-get that assumes yes every time — but the command could be anything.
This is sample output - yours may be different.
0

sudo su -c “echo -e \”\x23\x21/usr/bin/sudo /bin/bash\napt-get -y \x24\x40\” > /usr/bin/apt-yes”

realkstrawn93 · 2019-09-19 16:28:33 182
Login as another user in shell
This is sample output - yours may be different.
-1

su <username>

dsetton · 2014-02-01 19:45:37 7

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Create a mirror of a local folder, on a remote server

Create a exact mirror of the local folder "/root/files", on remote server 'remote_server' using SSH command (listening on port 22) (all files & folders on destination server/folder will be deleted)

Perform a C-style loop in Bash.

Print 0 through 99, each on a separate line.

Get a shell with a not available account

Word-based diff on reformatted text files

It can be hard to spot differences in reformatted files, because of all the diff noise created by word wrapped lines. This command removes all the noise and performs a word-by-word diff. To ignore empty lines, add -B to the diff command. Also, if this is something you do often, you might want to check out the wdiff(1) program.

lists files and folders in a folder

lists files and folders in a folder with summary.

Resume scp of a big file

Print every Nth line

Sometimes commands give you too much feedback. Perhaps 1/100th might be enough. If so, every() is for you. $ my_verbose_command | every 100 will print every 100th line of output. Specifically, it will print lines 100, 200, 300, etc If you use a negative argument it will print the *first* of a block, $ my_verbose_command | every -100 It will print lines 1, 101, 201, 301, etc The function wraps up this useful sed snippet: $ ... | sed -n '0~100p' don't print anything by default $ sed -n starting at line 0, then every hundred lines ( ~100 ) print. $ '0~100p' There's also some bash magic to test if the number is negative: we want character 0, length 1, of variable N. $ ${N:0:1} If it *is* negative, strip off the first character ${N:1} is character 1 onwards (second actual character).

Lists all listening ports together with the PID of the associated process

The PID will only be printed if you're holding a root equivalent ID.

Export MySQL tables that begin with a string

Create a persistent connection to a machine

Create a persistent SSH connection to the host in the background. Combine this with settings in your ~/.ssh/config: Host host ControlPath ~/.ssh/master-%r@%h:%p ControlMaster no All the SSH connections to the machine will then go through the persisten SSH socket. This is very useful if you are using SSH to synchronize files (using rsync/sftp/cvs/svn) on a regular basis because it won't create a new socket each time to open an ssh connection.

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Commands using su (17)

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