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I am trying to log into a server with a particular account. Let's say I don't know the password for that account. Can I do this using ssh? I am wondering if it is possible to do it in one command, instead of logging in as root and running su.

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Hmmm... this may be a bad question, but thanks for the answers. – mikez302 Feb 17 '10 at 18:35
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migrated from stackoverflow.com Feb 11 '10 at 0:15

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4 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

Another approach would be

ssh root@host su - user
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you'd have to make sure sshd.conf isn't set to squash root logins. You really don't want to do this (unless you're using key based auth, or some physical token, even then it's too risky) – skarface Feb 11 '10 at 21:11
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up vote 2 down vote

This doesn't make sense. If you're logged in as root, a plain su doesn't do anything except start a new shell. Maybe you mean su someotheruser?

As far as I know, most Linux installations don't allow root logging in remotely directly. One first has to log in as an ordinary user and su to become root.

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eh, plenty of systems allow root logins – jdizzle Feb 11 '10 at 0:05
He means using su [-] user form of su to become another user. – Alok Feb 11 '10 at 0:06
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up vote 2 down vote

You could probably accomplish this if you were willing to write a PAM module which caused entering the root password to make authentication succeed. Not going to be easy, but it would do what you want...

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up vote 1 down vote

No ...............

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