[Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#390910: login: Packaging arguments for su doesn't work as advertised

[Ian Zimmerman]

Package: login
Version: 1:4.0.18.1-3
Severity: normal

quoth man su:
You can use the -- argument to separate su options from the arguments
supplied to the shell.

$ su -c vi -- /etc/fstab
Unknown id: /etc/fstab
$ su root -c vi -- /etc/fstab
(... root vi session with no file loaded ...)

I am trying to switch to su from sudo in most cases, because I am afraid
of the latter's complexity; but running stuff with arguments is _such_
a pain with su!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-9custom1
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)

Versions of packages login depends on:
ii  libc6                        2.3.6.ds1-4 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libpam-modules               0.79-3.2    Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime               0.79-3.2    Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g                     0.79-3.2    Pluggable Authentication Modules l

login recommends no packages.

-- no debconf information