Bug 26894

Summary:	daemon() in initscripts functions runs "su" incorrectly
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Jeremy Portzer <jeremyp>
Component:	initscripts	Assignee:	Bill Nottingham <notting>
Status:	CLOSED RAWHIDE	QA Contact:	David Lawrence <dkl>
Severity:	low	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	7.0	CC:	dr, rvokal
Target Milestone:	---
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Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-02-12 14:53:05 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Jeremy Portzer 2001-02-09 23:30:23 UTC

The daemon() function in /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions takes a "--user" option
which tries to run the daemon as that user:

nice -n $nicelevel initlog $INITLOG_ARGS -c "su $daemon_user -c \"$*\"" &&
success "$base startup" || failure "$base startup"

However this causes problems if the daemon makes assumptions about its
environment, for example $HOME remains set to /root, not the homedir of
$daemon_user.   Obviously smart daemons make provisions for this type of
thing in their configuration, but I've encountered some third-party stuff
(namely Blackboard Courseinfo) that relies on the daemon user's
environment.  

This can easily be fixed by running su as "su - $daemon_user ..." to run
the daemon in a "login" shell.  It would probably reduce headaches if this
were the default behavior.

Comment 1 Bill Nottingham 2001-02-16 19:17:59 UTC

Will be fixed in 5.65-1 or so. Thanks!