Hello,

I have written a script to automate a software install. I am running the script as root, but need to su to another user to configure and complile the program properly. Whenever I do the shell script su's to the user properly but the scripts stops executing until I exit out of the new shell that su put me into. The following is an example of my script.

echo -e "\033[1m \n\t Installing courier-imap... \033[0m"
sleep 2
cd /var/src
tar -xjf tar/courier-imap-2.2.2.20040207.tar.bz2
cd courier-imap-2.2.2.20040207

# build as vpopmail
chown -R vpopmail:vchkpw ../courier-imap-2.2.2.20040207
su - vpopmail

./configure --with-redhat

I have also tried using the following to stay in the same shell and preserve the environment:
su - -m -p vpopmail

Does anyone have any thought as to how I can successfully SU and keep the script running?

Thanks,

Stephen

Ever thought about sudo?

It will allow you to execute single commands as a user without having to drop into the shell of that user. You could even run sudo, and point it to another shell script that contains all of the commands you need it to run, so you could make that script stay somewhat compact.