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SULOGIN(8)            Linux System Administrator's Manual           SULOGIN(8)



 

NAME


       sulogin - Single-user login

 

SYNOPSIS


       sulogin [ -e ] [ -p ] [ -t SECONDS ] [ TTY ]

 

DESCRIPTION






       sulogin  is  invoked  by  init(8) when the system goes into single user
       mode.  (This is done through an entry in inittab(5).)  Init also  tries
       to  execute  sulogin when the boot loader (e.g., grub(8)) passes it the
       -b option.

       The user is prompted

            Give root password for system maintenance
            (or type Control-D for normal startup):

       sulogin will be connected to the current terminal, or to  the  optional
       device  that  can be specified on the command line (typically /dev/con-
       sole).

       If the -t option is used then the program only waits the  given  number
       of seconds for user input.

       If  the  -p option is used then the single-user shell is invoked with a
       dash as the first character in argv[0].  This causes the shell  process
       to behave as a login shell.  The default is not to do this, so that the
       shell will not read /etc/profile or $HOME/.profile at startup.

       After the user exits the single-user shell, or presses control-D at the
       prompt, the system will (continue to) boot to the default runlevel.

 

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES


       sulogin looks for the environment variable SUSHELL or sushell to deter-
       mine what shell to start. If the environment variable is  not  set,  it
       will  try  to  execute  root's shell from /etc/passwd. If that fails it
       will fall back to /bin/sh.

       This is very valuable together with the -b option to init. To boot  the
       system  into  single  user  mode,  with  the  root  file system mounted
       read/write, using a special "fail safe" shell that is statically linked
       (this example is valid for the LILO bootprompt)

       boot: linux -b rw sushell=/sbin/sash

 

FALLBACK METHODS


       sulogin  checks  the root password using the standard method (getpwnam)
       first.  Then, if the -e option was specified,  sulogin  examines  these
       files directly to find the root password:

       /etc/passwd,
       /etc/shadow (if present)

       If  they  are  damaged  or nonexistent, sulogin will start a root shell
       without asking for a password. Only use the -e option if you  are  sure
       the console is physically protected against unauthorized access.

 

AUTHOR


       Miquel van Smoorenburg 

 

SEE ALSO


       init(8), inittab(5).



                                  17 Jan 2006                       SULOGIN(8)