38

I created a "system" user in Ubuntu 11.04 (adduser --system) for running certain cron jobs, but sometimes I want to test things out by manually running commands as that user. What's the easiest way to do this?

su doesn't work, because the user has /bin/false as its shell (which is fine for cron). I've been manually changing the shell to /bin/bash to do my testing and then changing it back again, but I wonder is there an easier way?

7ochem
  • 280
  • 1
  • 3
  • 12
EMP
  • 5,122
  • 10
  • 36
  • 32

2 Answers2

47

I use su - targetuser -s /bin/bash from a root shell.

For direct command execution use -c:

su - targetuser -s /bin/bash -c "/bin/echo hello world"
Tombart
  • 2,013
  • 3
  • 27
  • 47
dmourati
  • 24,720
  • 2
  • 40
  • 69
  • 1
    That works, thanks! How did I miss the -s option? – EMP May 28 '11 at 03:54
  • 3
    you can also tack on a -c "your_command_here" option to pass the command you'd like to run versus waiting for the shell and then typing it at a new prompt. – dmourati May 28 '11 at 06:16
2

Use sudo. This will work even if the user doesn't have a real shell.

eirescot
  • 554
  • 4
  • 8