Talk:su (Unix)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was move. —Nightstallion (?) 22:10, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

su (computing) → su (Unix) – (Unix) seems to be the more popular disambig naming convention (see list of Unix programs), and conformity is good in an encyclopedia

Survey

Add your comment per Wikipedia:Straw polls

• Support. su (Unix) seems natural, and it's the first place I would look for if I started search from scratch. YMMV of course. Duja 10:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I created this article a while back when I hadn't really looked at most of the Unix-related articles, and I was still jumping all over the place when it came to disambiguation (take fortune (program) as another example). Consistency is good. æle ✆ 21:19, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
• Support makes sense to follow the list of other unix programs --Lox (t,c) 16:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Comment about Windows XP and sudo?

Should the comment about Microsoft Windows XP having a "runas" command really be there? The article is about "su" on Unix, not about priviledge elevation (or whatever they're called) programs in general. It seems like it should at least be put in the "See Also" or "External Links" section. ... The sudo paragraph as well.

Needs a Serious ReWrite

"... what it does and why it does it has not been well understood, since the 1980s." Why? And what happened in the 80s? There's all sorts of weird sentences like that in this article. I don't even know what it is about half the time. Gingermint (talk) 20:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Confusing line

• "Great care must be taken by a system administrator to choose a suitable password for the root account, to prevent any possible takeover by a low level user running su."

Why does su specifically matter here? Couldn't the "low level user" just log out and log back in as "root"? Eleland 19:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

"super user" versus "switch user" versus "substitute user"

As discussed at talk:sudo#Is it "substitute user do" or "superuser do"?, the original term is "super user". That the command has gained flexibility does not change that. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 13:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The Version 7 Unix manual (see page 174 of the PDF) describes su as "substitute user id temporarily". Short of an email from ken or dmr themselves, that seems to be a reasonably definitive indication of what "su" actually stood for originally. The discussion on Talk:sudo seems to be pretty inconclusive overall. - htonl (talk) 16:28, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

There is also this article that could add to the debate. It claims that in the original source code, su stood for super user. I believe we would fare best to include the possible explanations that other people have given and tell the reader that the definition might have changed over time. Greetings --hroest 23:30, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I've never seen compilable vaginas, hroest. (Did you forget to Ctrl+C the actual link?) --93.125.228.122 (talk) 16:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

must have. --hroest 15:12, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

This article currently says it is "originally superuser do". I have changed the citations a little bit to better clarify why. The reference I use is a manual from 1971, whereas the one mentioned by @Htonl: would be from 1979 (I provided an archive for his deadlink). That the references "failed verification" will have to still be mentioned. Henstepl (talk) 20:03, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

The article The Meaning of ’su’ describes several alternatives explanations for the term su. The include

• subshell
• super user
• switch user / substitute user

It would be interesting to mention some of those here and try to add to the debate. The argument is that su was only used to switch to the super user, so originally it stood for super-user but that meaning changed later when su was able to switch to any user. Still a nice piece of history that deserves to be in the article. Greetings --hroest 15:19, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

A resolution on "super-user"/"substitute user"

I have been irked by the highly negative disclaimer on the article, and after adding additional citations and bettering the ones that existed, I have downgraded it from "failed verification" to "dubious - discuss" linking here.

There are now four links: a modern manpage ("substitute user"), a 1979 manual ("substitute user"), and a 1971 manpage implying "superuser" paired with a table of contents most explicitly saying: "su: become superuser."

Unless an earlier source than 1971 should contradict, it becomes clear that it was about "superuser" until it came to be about "substitute user", and any philosophical arguments about whether it can be said to "stand for" are as silly as those for "mkdir - make a directory".

@Thumperward: @Htonl: @Hannes Röst: only the latter of you three is a dirty-minded man, so I invite you all to let objections be known, or find official sources for "switch user" and the other theories. After a while I hope to remove the Dubious template. Henstepl (talk) 22:11, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the lead should just say The Unix command su, which stands for "super-user" or "substitute user", ... (with the appropriate citations of course). I see no reason to keep the "dubious" template since your citation to the 1971 TOC in particular seems to provide a clear basis for "super-user". - htonl (talk) 09:09, 31 May 2022 (UTC)

This is perfectly fine by me. This was all kicked off by one troublesome edit by an IP, and given that appeasing random IPs is impossible, it should not factor into the resolution. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 09:29, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree, they are likely unappeasable. I have rolled back all dubious templates and left it with my citations, however, I have added a word: "historically", it is super-user. I feel that this much is demonstrated, and the implicit question of whether it always allowed "substitution" of non-superuser accounts is best understood as just that: historical trivia. I'll leave it at that so nobody starts mailing widows, but let me know if there's any objection. Henstepl (talk) 20:13, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

This statement from the opening paragraph needs to be reconsidered

This statement from the opening paragraph needs to be reconsidered: "... what it does and why it does it has not been well understood, since the 1980s." Butlertd (talk) 18:01, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Broken attribution

The [3] attribution link, http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/manual/html_node/su-invocation.html#index-fascism-2365, doesn't go anywhere anymore. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.216.157.143 (talk) 00:42, 9 July 2015 (UTC)

I have just fixed this, and though the live URL is preferred, an archive is provided. Henstepl (talk) 19:51, 30 May 2022 (UTC)