redhat/fedora distros: su versus su -

[Michael J. Knox]

Chitlesh GOORAH wrote:
> Hello here,
> Last time at LinuxTag Wiesbaden, someone asked me why in RedHat/Fedora 
> distros,
> /sbin is not in the PATH for _su_
> example ifconfig
> but as _su -_, /sbin is in the PATH?
> 
> He also pointed out that in other distros like Mandriva and Suse it is
> not the case.
> 
> Can anyone answer this so that I could document myself :)
> 
> regards,
> Chitlesh Goorah


su - takes the root user's enviroment varibles, su by itself does not. 
When you call just su, your (mortal users) enviroment varibles are used.

Thats my understanding.

Michael