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Re: LOGNAME not properly set on FreeBSD



On Tue, Apr 01, 2014 at 08:27:46PM -0400, Phil Pennock wrote:
On 2014-04-01 at 16:22 -0500, Erik Johnson wrote:
When using "su - username" to change users, zsh is not properly setting
the LOGNAME environment variable on FreeBSD. Example below.

----------------------------8< cut here >8------------------------------
LOGNAME
   If the corresponding variable is not set in the  environment  of
   the  shell, it is initialized to the login name corresponding to
   the current login session. This parameter is exported by default
   but this can be disabled using the typeset builtin.
----------------------------8< cut here >8------------------------------

This is the _login_ name, as a convenience, it's not the _current_ name,
and is not defined as such.  The whole point is that if you su to
another account, LOGNAME can persist as the original.  It's not
_trustworthy_, but might be used to let you have a .zshrc.staff.$LOGNAME
file which might be auto-sourced, or whatever else you want.

If you do:

   % typeset +x LOGNAME

then LOGNAME won't be exported.


The whole point of "su -" (and "su -l", which are equivalent), is to
make the session a login session.

http://www.unix.com/man-page/FreeBSD/1/SU/

So, LOGNAME should be set appropriately in those cases. I can understand
not setting LOGNAME when su is invoked without "-" or "-l", because that
doesn't create a login session. But not setting it for login shells is
incorrect behavior.

erik@virtubsd:~% su - root
Password:
virtubsd# echo $LOGNAME
erik

Yup, that's exactly what it's supposed to do.


No, it's not, as I noted above.

You might want USERNAME instead of LOGNAME ?

-Phil


Nope. The current behavior breaks python's getpass.getuser()
(https://docs.python.org/2/library/getpass.html#getpass.getuser), which
relies on a properly-set LOGNAME.


--

-Erik

"For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to
persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."  --Carl Sagan

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