[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: SuSE 9 or 9.1 PATH environment changes after su

[lee]

terry wrote:
> I'm thinking that aliasing su - to su is pretty handy because I, for 
> one, find no need to just use su without -
> 
> My question is, (and I know I'm probably showing my ignorance here, 
> but), in what case would it be better to use su without - ?

one case for me is that i needed to set ulimit -n to something other 
than the default for a user, but ulimit -n has to be executed by root.

[lee at foonine lee]$ ulimit -n
1024
[lee at foonine lee]$ ulimit -n 4096
bash: ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Operation not permitted
[lee at foonine lee]$ su
Password:
[root at foonine lee]# ulimit -n 4096
[root at foonine lee]# su lee
[lee at foonine lee]$ ulimit -n
4096