From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!cbosgd!mark
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: extraneous csh prompts
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2403
Posted: Tue Jun 22 20:43:01 1982
Received: Sun Jun 27 03:30:36 1982
References: floyd.302

Andy has an interesting idea.  It ought to be trivial for the su command
to, instead of exec'ing a subshell, to scribble on /dev/kmem to make
itself a new uid.  Then to get back you would have to do another su,
or maybe have an alias for it or have a link "unsu" for going back.

Has anybody out there tried this, with good or bad results?  Seems to me
that, in addition to the history advantage Andy cites (how many times
have you tried to do something, have the system deny permission, su,
and have to type it in again?) it should be faster (no .cshrc or
hashing for the shell).  It would be harder to toggle back and forth,
however, than using "suspend" and "%su".  Maybe it could set a bit
in the proc table someplace so you wouldn't have to give the password again.

	Mark