Running scripts via su

ravi.sri24 · February 10, 2009, 11:41am

Hi All,

Am using the below command to start my application using the root user

su - bin -c "/home/bin/test/start.sh"

but am getting the error becaue i have set some environment varibales in bin .profile

when i execute the command start.sh by logging directly into bin account it's working fine

But where as if i ran the above command using the root user am getting error seems it's not loading the bin profile

Please advise me how to load the bin's profile while using the su

vgersh99 · February 10, 2009, 11:50am

Please, don't hijack other people's threads - start a new thread!

Post moved to new thread -- Otheus

otheus · February 11, 2009, 6:05am

The user "bin" doesn't have a home directory, or if it does, it's not the one shared by root, and so there is no profile to load. You can fix this by going into the passwd table and giving bin a home directory, such as "/root" or "/" or a new directory like "/home/bin" and installing an appropriate .*shrc file there.

ravi.sri24 · February 11, 2009, 8:44am

Hi Thanks for the reply, I have the bin direcotry and when the run the start.sh script file it's running fine but when am running the start.sh using the root shell by using the su command it's not working

otheus · February 11, 2009, 8:55am

When you run su as you explained, it tries to load the environment of "bin". If you want root's environment instead, use:

su bin -c start.sh

This will use the current environment but run start.sh as user bin. If you want to run it with root's environment, you must do as I described in my previous post.

ravi.sri24 · February 11, 2009, 9:45am

otheus:

When you run su as you explained, it tries to load the environment of "bin". If you want root's environment instead, use:
su bin -c start.sh
This will use the current environment but run start.sh as user bin. If you want to run it with root's environment, you must do as I described in my previous post.

When i run the below command i want's bin environment varibales loaded but it's not loading so my process getting failed with the the reason NoClassDefination found error

su - bin -c "start.sh"

otheus · February 11, 2009, 9:48am

Since you are not understanding my posts, I will let someone else help you.

ravi.sri24 · February 11, 2009, 11:03am

I understood you, you said when we run the su command with "-" you are saying it's will load the bin's profile but in my case it's not loading the bin's profile it's taking the root's environment variables only

avronius · February 11, 2009, 11:28am

First, identify the path that bin is using for home. Then, ensure that there is a .profile for bin:

ls -la /path_to_bin's_home_directory/bin

Then, write this script to see how the environment is changed using the ". /path/.profile" to change your environment.

#!/usr/bin/sh
/usr/bin/env > /tmp/default.environmentOutput

# This is where you will source the profile for your user
. /path_to_bin's_home_directory/bin/.profile
/usr/bin/env > /tmp/bin.environmentOutput

EDIT: Run using this command:

su - bin -c "/path_to_your_script/envCheck.sh"

/EDIT

This will create two files in /tmp
The first will show you the current environment variables.
The second will show you the NEW environment variables when you source the profile.

Test that - if you see a difference between the two files in /tmp, then you will see what the previous poster's are recommending. If you do not, then there is likely something wrong with the profile that you are sourcing - or you may be sourcing the wrong one.