Strange behavior of su

[Barry Shein]

From: dave at uwvax.UUCP (Dave Cohrs)
>> Every now and then after I have been logged in for a while I will try to
>> su, have su ask the password, and then it sits for a bit and exits.  It
>> does not generate any error messages, the exit status is 0.  After this
>> has happened it will keep happening until I log out, I have always been
>> able to su immediately after logging in.
>
>You didn't say to whom you were su'ing.  However, if you were becoming
>root, this behaviour doesn't make sense.  If you were becoming another
>normal user, this probably means the current directory was inaccesable
>to the new user.  In this case, su gives up quietly.  I think this is
>a case there things could be a bit more verbose.

You better explain which version of UNIX you believe this happens
(su exits silently if '.' is not accessible.)

I just tried it under 4.2bsd (vax), SYSVR2 (3b5) and SYSVR(1?) (PC7300)
and all let me su to a non-priv'd user while in a directory they had
no access to, of course:

	% ls
	. not found
	%

was the amusing side effect, but that is not what you said (and that is
a non-fatal and correct side-effect and has nothing to do with su.)

	-Barry Shein, Boston University