su bug in Ultrix 4.1 still there

[Tony Catone]

In article <1990Dec12.024324.13947 at cerberus.bhpese.oz.au> Sm at cerberus.bhpese.oz.au (Scott Merrilees) writes:
>It seems that your ideas and mine are totally opposed.  I think that
>log in as root should be avoided in just about all cases, and that the
>priviledged user should first log into their own account, then su to
>root where necessary. . .

This would be fine, except that the su command does not work properly
on all Unix implementations.  That is, command behavior is not identical
for root login and su'ing to root.  My most recent encounter with this
problem has been IBM AIX PS/2 1.1.  The same problem existed in IBM
AIX RT 2.2.1; behavior was even worse that PS/2 1.1.  I don't know how
Ultrix behaves on this scale, since we are just setting up our 5000/200's,
but in general I am wary of the su command for these reasons.  Root
logins always work; su may or may not; life is complicated enough without
these problems.

- Tony
  catone at desci.wharton.upenn.edu