The su Command

Material below is adapted from Chapter 5 of O'Reilly Practical Unix &  Internet Security

Sometimes, one user must assume the identity of another. For example, you might sit down at a friend's terminal and want access to one of your protected files. Rather than forcing you to log your friend out and log yourself in, Unix gives you a way to change your user ID temporarily: the su command, which is short for "substitute user." The su command requires that you provide the password of the user to whom you are changing.

For example, to change yourself from tim to john, you might type:

% whoamiNote:  Another good moral of this story is that you should always type rm -rf  with a full pathname (e.g., rm -rf /usr/tmp/*—especially when running the command as the superuser!Note:  Another good moral of this story is that you should always type rm -rf  with a full pathname (e.g., rm -rf /usr/tmp/*—especially when running the command as the superuser!Note:  Another good moral of this story is that you should always type rm -rf  with a full pathname (e.g., rm -rf /usr/tmp/*—especially when running the command as the superuser!
tim 
% /bin/su john
password:  *********

% whoami
john 
%

You can now access john's files. (And you will be unable to access tim's files, unless those files are specifically available to the user john.)

The most common use of the su command is to invoke superuser access. For example, if you are the system administrator and Rachel needs her password reset, you could reset the password by becoming the superuser and then using the passwd command:

$ /bin/su -
Password: *********
#

  Real and Effective UIDs with the su Command

Processes on Unix systems always have at least two identities. Normally, these two identities are the same. The first identity is the real UID. The real UID is your "real identity" and matches up (usually) with the username you logged in as. Sometimes you may want to take on the identity of another user to access some files or execute some commands. You might do this by logging in as that user, thus obtaining a new command interpreter whose underlying process has a real UID equal to that user.

Alternatively, if you only want to execute a few commands as another user, you can use the su command (as described in the previous section) to create a new process. This will run a new copy of your command interpreter (shell), and have the identity (real UID) of that other user. To use the su command, you must either know the password for the other user's account or be currently running as the superuser.

There are times when a software author wants a single command to execute with the rights and privileges of another user—most often, the root user. In a case such as this, we certainly don't want to disclose the password to the root account, nor do we want the user to have access to a command interpreter running as root. Unix addresses this problem through the use of a special kind of file designation called setuid or SUID. When a SUID file is run, the process involved takes on an effective UID that is the same as the owner of the file, but the real UID remains the same.

Some versions of Unix have a third form of UID: the saved UID. In these systems, a user may run a setuid program that sets an effective UID of 0 and then sets some different real UID as well. The saved UID is used by the system to allow the user to set her identity back to the original value. Normally, this is not something the user can see, but it can be important when you are writing or running SUID programs.

Unix also has the analogous concepts of effective GID , real GID, and setgid for groups.

Some versions of Unix also have concepts of session ID, process group ID, and audit ID. A session ID is associated with the processes connected to a terminal, and can be thought of as indicating a "login session." A process group ID designates a group of processes that are in the foreground or background on systems that allow job control. An audit ID indicates a thread of activity that should be treated as the same in the audit mechanism. You need to understand session IDs and process group IDs if you are developing software that needs to remain running after a user logs out, or if you are creating a system of programs that need to communicate with each other by using signals. Audit IDs are important if you are developing software that needs to analyze audit log files.

Becoming the Superuser

Typing su without a username tells Unix that you wish to become the superuser. You will be prompted for a password. Typing the correct root password causes a shell to be run with a UID of 0. When you become the superuser, your prompt should change to the pound sign (#) to remind you of your new powers. For example:

% /bin/su -
password: *********
# whoami
root 
#

Once you have become the superuser, you are free to perform whatever system administration you wish.

When using the su command to become the superuser, you should always type the command's full pathname, /bin/su. By typing the full pathname, you are assuring the system that you are actually running the real /bin/su command, and not another command named su that happens to be in your search path. This method is a very important way of protecting yourself (and the superuser password) from capture by a Trojan horse. Other techniques are described in Chapter 23.

Notice the use of the dash in the earlier example. Most versions of the su command support an optional argument of a single dash. When supplied, this causes su to invoke its subshell with a dash, which causes the shell to read all relevant startup files and simulate a login. Using the dash option is important when becoming a superuser: the option guarantees that you will be using the superuser's path, and not the path of the account from which you sued.

To exit the subshell, type exit.

If you use the su command to change to another user while you are the superuser, you won't be prompted for the password of that user. (This makes sense; as the superuser, you could easily change that user's password and then log in as that user.) For example:

# /bin/su john
% whoami
john 
%

Using su to become the superuser is not a security hole. Any user who knows the superuser password could also log in as the superuser; breaking in through su is no easier. In fact, su enhances security: many Unix systems can be set up so that every su attempt is logged, with the date, time, and user who typed the command. Examining these log files allows the system administrator to see who is exercising superuser privileges—as well as who shouldn't be!

Use su with Caution

If you are the system administrator, you should be careful about how you use the su command. Remember that if you su to the superuser account, you can do things by accident that you would normally be protected from doing. You could also accidentally give away access to the superuser account without knowing you did so.

As an example of the first case, consider the real instance of someone we know who thought that he was in a temporary directory in his own account and typed rm -rf *. Unfortunately, he was actually in the /usr/lib directory, and he was operating as the superuser. He spent the next few hours restoring tapes, checking permissions, and trying to soothe irate users. The moral of this small vignette, and hundreds more we could relate with similar consequences, is that you should not issue commands as the superuser unless you need the extra privileges. Program construction, testing, and personal "housecleaning" should all be done under your own user identity.

Note:  Another good moral of this story is that you should always type rm -rf  with a full pathname (e.g., rm -rf /usr/tmp/*—especially when running the command as the superuser!

Another example is when you accidentally execute a Trojan Horse program instead of the system command you thought you executed. (See the  Stealing Superuser, later in this chapter.) If something like this happens to you as user root, your entire system can be compromised.

For instance, if a user reports a problem with files in her account, you could su to the root account and investigate, because you might not be able to access her account or files from your own, regular account. However, a better approach is to su to the superuser account, and then su to the user's account—you won't need her password for the su after you are root. Not only does this method protect the root account, but you will also have some of the same access permissions as the user you are helping, and that may help you find the problem sooner.

Stealing Superuser

Once upon a time, many years ago, one of us needed access to the root account on an academic machine. Although we had been authorized by management to have root access, the local system manager didn't want to disclose the password. He asserted that access to the root account was dangerous (correct), that he had far more knowledge of Unix than we did (unlikely), and that we didn't need the access (incorrect). After several diplomatic and bureaucratic attempts to get access normally, we took a slightly different approach, with management's wry approval.

We noticed that this user had "." at the beginning of his shell search path. This meant that every time he typed a command name, the shell would first search the current directory for the command of the same name. When he did a su to root, this search path was inherited by the new shell. This was all we really needed.

First, we created an executable shell file named ls in the current directory:

#!/bin/sh
cp /bin/sh ./stuff/junk/.superdude
chmod 4555 ./stuff/junk/.superdude
rm -f $0
exec /bin/ls ${1+"$@"}

Then, we executed the following commands:

% cd 
% chmod 700 .
% touch ./-f

The trap was ready. We approached the recalcitrant administrator with the complaint, "I have a funny file in my directory I can't seem to delete." Because the directory was mode 700, he couldn't list the directory to see the contents. So, he used su to become user root. Then he changed the directory to our home directory and issued the command ls to view the problem file. Instead of the system version of ls, he ran our version. This created a hidden setuid root copy of the shell, deleted the bogus ls command, and ran the real ls command. The administrator never knew what happened.

We listened politely as he explained (superciliously) that files beginning with a dash character (-) needed to be deleted with a pathname relative to the current directory (in our case, rm ./-f); of course, we knew that.

A few minutes later, he couldn't get the new root password.

 

Using su to Run Commands from Scripts

Another common use of the su command is to run a program under a specific userID in a script that is being run automatically by root. For example, a startup script for a system that runs three programs under three different user IDs might look like this:

/bin/su usera -c /usr/local/system/scripta
/bin/su userb -c /usr/local/system/scriptb
/bin/su userc -c /usr/local/system/scriptc

Early versions of the Unix cron program ran all programs in the crontab under the user root; to run a program under a different user, the su command was used:

0 4 * * * /bin/su uucp -c /usr/lib/uucp/uuclean

Restricting su

On some versions of Berkeley-derived Unix, a user cannot su to the root account unless the user is a member of the Unix group wheel—or any other group given the group ID of 0. For this restriction to work, the /etc/group entry for group wheel must be non-empty; if the entry has no usernames listed, the restriction is disabled, and anyone can su to user root if he has the password.

Some versions of su also allow members of the wheel group to become the superuser by providing their own passwords instead of the superuser password. The advantage of this feature is that you don't need to tell the superuser's password to a user for him to have superuser access—you simply have to put him into the wheel group. You can take away his access simply by taking him out of the group.

Some versions of System V Unix require that users specifically be given permission to su. Different versions of Unix accomplish this in different ways; consult your own system's documentation for details, and use the mechanism if it is available.

Another way to restrict the su program is by making it executable only by a specific group and by placing in that group only the people who you want to be able to run the command. For information on how to do this, see Section 6.3.

The su Log

Most versions of the su command log successful and failed attempts. Older versions of Unix explicitly logged su attempts to the console and to a hardcoded file, such as the /var/adm/messages file. Newer versions log bad su attempts through the syslog facility, allowing you to send the messages to a file of your choice or to log facilities on remote computers across the network. The FreeBSD version of su uses the syslog facility, but opens the facility with the LOG_CONS flag so that the bad su attempts are logged both to the auth facility and to the console. You should be careful who has access to the log of failed su attempts, as the log files can occasionally contain a variation of the root password.

If you notice many bad attempts, it may be an indication that somebody using an account on your system is trying to gain unauthorized privileges; this might be a legitimate user poking around, or it might be an indication that the user's account has been appropriated by an outsider who is trying to gain further access.

A single bad attempt, of course, might simply be a mistyped password, someone mistyping the du command, or somebody wondering what the su command does.^[11]

^[11] Which of course leads us to observe that people who try commands to see what they do shouldn't be allowed to run commands like su once they find out.

The sulog under Solaris

You can quickly scan the appropriate su log file for bad passwords with the grep command:

% grep BAD /var/adm/messages
BADSU 09/12 18:40 - pts/0 rachel-root

Good su attempts on a Solaris system look like this:

% grep + /var/adm/sulog
SU 09/14 23:42 + pts/2 simsong-root
SU 09/16 08:40 + pts/4 simsong-root
SU 09/16 10:34 + pts/3 simsong-root

It would appear that Simson has been busy suing to root on September 14th and 16th.

 The sulog under BSD

Here is a similar command executed on a FreeBSD system:

r2# grep 'su:' /var/log/messages
Jun 14 19:22:25 <auth.notice> r2 su: simsong to root on /dev/ttyp1
Jun 14 19:30:06 <auth.warn> r2 su: BAD SU simsong to root on /dev/ttyp1
Jun 14 19:30:18 <auth.warn> r2 su: BAD SU simsong to root on /dev/ttyp1
Jun 14 19:31:10 <auth.warn> r2 su: BAD SU simsong to root on /dev/ttyp2
Jun 14 19:31:38 <auth.notice> r2 su: simsong to root on /dev/ttyp2
r2#

Note that the successful su attempts are logged with the syslog level <auth.notice>, while the failed attempts are logged at the level <auth.warn>. For more information on syslog warning levels, see Chapter 20.

The sulog under Red Hat Linux

Red Hat uses the pam_unix module to log su attempts to the /var/log/messages file. Successful su attempts look like this:

# grep 'su.pam_unix' messages | grep -v failure
Jun 11 04:05:59 l1 su(pam_unix)[19838]: session opened for user news by (uid=0)
Jun 11 04:06:00 l1 su(pam_unix)[19838]: session closed for user news
Jun 11 15:48:37 l1 su(pam_unix)[22433]: session opened for user root by 
simsong(uid=500)
Jun 11 15:51:23 l1 su(pam_unix)[22433]: session closed for user root
Jun 11 16:31:16 l1 su(pam_unix)[22695]: session opened for user root by 
simsong(uid=500)
Jun 11 19:06:03 l1 su(pam_unix)[22695]: session closed for user root
#

Note that the pam_unix system logs successful su attempts by both users and programs. The pam_unix system also logs when the su session starts and ends. In the preceding example, the first two lines represent the start and end of a Netnews cleanup script that is run automatically at 4:00 a.m. every day by the operating system. UID 0 (the superuser) successfully sus to the news user, and then runs a script. The second and third attempts represent interactive su attempts by the user simsong.

Failed su attempts are logged to the same file, but with a different error message:

# grep 'su.pam_unix' messages | grep failure
Jun 15 14:40:55 l1 su(pam_unix)[10788]: authentication failure; logname=rachel 
uid=181 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=  user=root
Jun 15 14:40:59 l1 su(pam_unix)[10789]: authentication failure; logname=rachel 
uid=181 euid=0 tty= ruser= rhost=  user=root
#

These two examples indicate that user rachel attempted to su to the root account, and failed.

Note: The root account is not an account designed for the personal use of the system administrator. Because all security checks are turned off for the superuser, a typing error could easily trash the entire system. Murphy's Law ensures that this happens more often than even experienced users might wish, so use the root account with caution!

sudo: A More Restrictive su

Mac OS X, OpenBSD, and many Linux distributions are equipped with a program named sudo that allows a person to exercise superuser privileges by prefixing its name to the command. The commands executed as superuser are logged with the name of the person who has run the command, and the time that the command was executed. Security of logs can be increased if they are stored on a second computer; sudo can also send email messages when it runs successfully, or when a sudo attempt fails.

To be allowed to use the sudo command, the user should either be explicitly listed in file /etc/sudoers (location can be different and depends on flavor of Unix) or belong to a privileged groups such as wheel.  

Due to logging sudo command offers additional accountability. 

Another advantage of sudo is that the /etc/sudoers file can specify not only who may use sudo, but which commands they are permitted to run.^[12] For example, simsong may be allowed to run only passwd, dump, or mount.

^[12] In fact, it can even specify on which machines the users may run the commands. This makes it possible for a single sudoers file to be distributed across many machines.

It's important to be careful about which commands you allow users to run through sudo. Many commands, such as editors, provide a way to escape to a shell. If a user can run an editor as root, they can often escape to a root shell:

[G3:/var/log] simsong% sudo ed /dev/null
Password: *******
0
!sh
[G3:/var/log] root#

At this point, the user has full access to the system and can run any command without having it logged. 

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Last modified: March 12, 2019