1SULOGIN(8) Linux System Administrator's Manual SULOGIN(8)
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6 sulogin -- Single-user login
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9 sulogin [ -e ] [ -p ] [ -t timeout ] [ tty-device ]
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12 sulogin can be invoked by init(8) when the system goes into single user
13 mode (this is done through an entry in inittab(5)). Init also tries to
14 execute sulogin when it is passed the -b flag from the bootmonitor (eg,
15 LILO).
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17 The user is prompted
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19 Give root password for system maintenance
20 (or type Control-D for normal startup):
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22 sulogin will be connected to the current terminal, or to the optional
23 device that can be specified on the command line (typically /dev/con‐
24 sole).
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26 If the -p flag was set, the single-user shell will be invoked with a
27 dash as the first character in argv[0]. That will cause most shells to
28 behave as a login shell. The default is not to do this, so that the
29 shell will not read /etc/profile or $HOME/.profile at startup.
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31 After the user exits the single-user shell, or presses control-d at the
32 prompt, the system will (continue to) boot to the default runlevel.
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35 sulogin looks for the environment variable SUSHELL or sushell to deter‐
36 mine what shell to start. If the environment variable is not set, it
37 will try to execute root's shell from /etc/passwd. If that fails it
38 will fall back to /bin/sh.
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40 This is very valuable together with the -b flag to init. To boot the
41 system into single user mode, with the root file system mounted
42 read/write, using a special "failsafe" shell that is statically linked
43 (this example is valid for the LILO bootprompt)
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45 boot: linux -b rw sushell=/sbin/sash
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48 sulogin checks the root password using the standard method (getpwnam)
49 first. Then, if the -e option was specified, sulogin examines these
50 files directly to find the root password:
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52 /etc/passwd,
53 /etc/shadow (if present)
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55 If they are damaged or non-existant, sulogin will start a root shell
56 without asking for a password. Only use the -e option if you are sure
57 the console is physically protected against unauthorized access.
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60 Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl>
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63 init(8), inittab(5).
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67 04 Nov 2003 SULOGIN(8)