Running su with -c gives unrecognized command error

Question

I am trying to run a command as another user in Linux. Here is what I run:

su user1 -c '/bin/mkdir /tmp/zz'

However, this gives me this error:

fatal: unrecognized command '/bin/mkdir /tmp/zz'

su user1 -c '/bin/mkdir /tmp/zz' works for me (using Ubuntu Precise). What is the shell of user1? — Mark Wagner, Apr 09 '13 at 23:54

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 09 '13 at 23:05

1

You need to swap the single quotes for double quotes. Not that these are only required with commands that take parameters, or if you chain several commands together.

su user1 -c "/bin/mkdir /tmp/zz"

answered Apr 09 '13 at 23:05

tink

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Now that's cute. The guy who downvoted me culled his own response, but didn't change his mind on my answer. :( – tink Apr 22 '13 at 23:49
I agree, don't use single quotes for `su` as they often makes trouble – djdomi Jun 13 '21 at 09:54

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 01 '14 at 11:41

0

As suggested by Mark Wagner, I encountered the same problem when the user had a non-standard shell (in my case it was git-shell). And the solution was to do:

su -s /bin/bash -c 'some command'

answered May 01 '14 at 11:41

sega_sai

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Running su with -c gives unrecognized command error

2 Answers2