how to "su" to nobody

[Trocchio]

I have apache configured to run as the user nobody, and I would like to vi a file, so I went to:

su nobody

and it asks me for a password. Does anyone know what the default password for nobody is, this is a SuSE 8.2 machine, thanks a bunch.

[Hayl]

it doesn't want nobody's password.

it wants the root password.

PS - why not just su to root and vi the file as root? root has access to every file.

<btw, i modified the Subject of your thread to make it a bit more descriptive than "nobody". see the posting guidelines - link is in my sig.>

[Trocchio]

lol, sorry, and thanks! Does it do that for all of the service accounts ( eg. mysql...)

[Trocchio]

well, im actually just playing around.... however the root password doesnt seem to let me into nobody... maybe i cant access it...

[Hayl]

logging in as nobody could be disabled for security reasons.

just use su with no account name and you will change to root and then you can edit any file you want.

[sharth]

usually, non user accounts have a null (or whatever its called) password. basically, there is no password you can use. you can do something like this with the root password though, " su -c ' su nobody ' " and, with the root pass, you will then be nobody.