Bug 3967 – su resolves symlinks to their source

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Bug 3967 - su resolves symlinks to their source

Summary:	su resolves symlinks to their source

Status:	CLOSED WONTFIX

Aliases:	None

Product:	Red Hat Linux
Classification:	Retired
Component:	sh-utils (Show other bugs)
Sub Component:
Version:	6.0
Hardware:	All Linux

Priority	medium Severity medium
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Assigned To:	David Lawrence
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Reported:	1999-07-09 13:30 EDT by Matthew Galgoci
Modified:	2008-05-01 11:37 EDT (History)
CC List:	1 user (show)

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Doc Type:	Bug Fix
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Last Closed:	1999-07-09 13:40:32 EDT
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Description Matthew Galgoci 1999-07-09 13:30:53 EDT

I don't know if this is proper behavior or not,
but su seems to follow symlinks to their source.

However, when you exit the shell that you su to, it

eg:

[mgalgoci@skuzzlebutt linux]$ pwd
/usr/src/linux
[mgalgoci@skuzzlebutt linux]$ su
Password:
[root@skuzzlebutt linux-2.2.5]#
[root@skuzzlebutt linux-2.2.5]# exit
exit
[mgalgoci@skuzzlebutt linux]$ ls -al ../linux
lrwxrwxrwx   1 root     root           11 Apr 24 14:13
../linux -> linux-2.2.5
[mgalgoci@skuzzlebutt linux]$

Comment 1 Jeff Johnson 1999-07-09 13:40:59 EDT

The function getcwd(3) recurses backward to / from the current
directory in order to discover the path. When the shell is first
invoked (by su in this case), getcwd is invoked to find the current
directory. Henceforth, the arg of each cd command is used to save the
current directory. So, in your case, to restore the prompt, you
would need to do
	cd ../linux
or
	cd /usr/src/linux
to restore the prompt value.

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