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From: greyham@hades.ausonics.oz.au (Greyham Stoney)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: /bin/su - + /bin/sh + long TIMEZONE == big problems on 386/ix 2.0.2
Message-ID: <1990Oct9.001704.18149@hades.ausonics.oz.au>
Date: 9 Oct 90 00:17:04 GMT
Organization: Ausonics Pty Ltd, Sydney, Australia
Lines: 37

We're having big problems with /bin/sh not accepting our TIMEZONE specification
under 386/ix 2.0.2. It seems to work OK normally, but when you su to any
user (yourself even) who has /bin/sh as their shell using "/bin/su -", the
shell bombs out during startup with the error message:

> 70/2:00:00,280/2:00:00: is not an identifier

You also get the error if you "/bin/su -" to a /bin/csh user, and then try
invoking "/bin/sh".

Note that this is the tail end of out TIMEZONE specification. (see below)
strings /bin/sh | grep "identifier" reveals:

> is not an identifier

So its some sort of borne shell problem; I assume the problem is somehow
related to the length of our TIMEZONE spec: we're in Australia and our
/etc/TIMEZONE looks like this:

> TZ="EDT-11:00:00EST-10:00:00;70/2:00:00,300/2:00:00"
> export TZ

The problem doesn't occur if you use "/bin/su" instead of "/bin/su -", or if
you "unsetenv TZ" (or setenv it to something short) BEFORE doing the "su -".
Once you've done the "su -" though (to a /bin/csh user say, so you can run
/bin/sh manually), doing setenv TZ has no effect [this bit has got me really
confused].

Anyone got any ideas on how to cope with this?. Is it fixed in 386/ix 2.2?

					thanks,
						Greyham.
-- 
/*  Greyham Stoney:                            Australia: (02) 428 6476
 *  greyham@hades.ausonics.oz.au - Ausonics Pty Ltd, Lane Cove, Sydney, Oz.
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