Bug#813789: systemd: su -l does not start/attach to user session

[Boris Kolpackov]

contos at kontesti.me <contos at kontesti.me> writes:

> I had the same problem, but I ended up reporting it to login package
> (https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=814670 should they be
> merged?). I only saw this bug here now.
> 
> Does anyone have, at least, a workaround for this? I'd rather su or sudo into a
> user instead of having to initiate a ssh session to it (this user used to not
> even have a password or SSH key).
> 
> Not even
> 
> 	# login -f username
> 
> works.

The only workaround that I know of is:

1. Enable linger for the account.
2. Manually "attach" to the lingering session by:

   export XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/`id -u`

I also wonder if that su reimplementation that is part of new systemd
is meant to fix/give control over this.