Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tiamat!chromc!dynasys!jessea
From: jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: loginid vs. uid.
Message-ID: <346@dynasys.UUCP>
Date: 18 Jul 90 16:13:35 GMT
References: <316@dynasys.UUCP> <232@twg.wimsey.bc.ca>
Reply-To: jessea@dynasys.UUCP (Jesse W. Asher)
Organization: Dynasys:  Consulting for the Future.
Lines: 23

In article <232@twg.wimsey.bc.ca>, bill@twg.wimsey.bc.ca (Bill Irwin) wrote the following:
>>uid is) while leaving your login intact.  Of course you can have both
>                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>changed, but the above leaves me to believe that they are not
> ^^^^^^^
>>interchangeable concepts.  The uid is not the same as the loginid.
>>Does anyone have any comments on this?
>
>How do you change your logname to "wimp" when you "su - wimp"?  I have an
>email  application  that  uses the logname to determine  which  directory
>structure  to deal with in mail sessions, which makes it impossible to su
>to another user and read their mail.

When I do "su - wimp", my LOGNAME becomes wimp.  This allows me to read
wimp's mail by just typing in "mailx".  Now, if I just do "su wimp", my
LOGNAME is not changed, but my uid is.  So I can access any of wimp's files
as if the true owner, but it will not let me read wimp's mail.  I have to
do "mailx -uwimp" in order to read it.  It sounds like your su may act
differently than mine.

Jesse W. Asher			Dynasys			Evening: (901)382-1609 
6196-1 Macon Rd., Suite 200, Memphis, TN 38134
UUCP: {fedeva,chromc}!dynasys!jessea