SULOGIN(8) System Administration SULOGIN(8)NAMEsulogin - single-user login
SYNOPSISsulogin [options] [tty]
DESCRIPTIONsulogin is invoked by init when the system goes into single-user mode.
The user is prompted:
Give root password for system maintenance
(or type Control-D for normal startup):
If the root account is locked and --force is specified, no password is
required.
sulogin will be connected to the current terminal, or to the optional
tty device that can be specified on the command line (typically
/dev/console).
When the user exits from the single-user shell, or presses control-D at
the prompt, the system will continue to boot.
OPTIONS-e, --force
If the default method of obtaining the root password from the
system via getpwnam(3) fails, then examine /etc/passwd and
/etc/shadow to get the password. If these files are damaged or
nonexistent, or when root account is locked by '!' or '*' at the
begin of the password then sulogin will start a root shell with‐
out asking for a password.
Only use the -e option if you are sure the console is physically
protected against unauthorized access.
-p, --login-shell
Specifying this option causes sulogin to start the shell process
as a login shell.
-t, --timeout seconds
Specify the maximum amount of time to wait for user input. By
default, sulogin will wait forever.
-h, --help
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLESsulogin looks for the environment variable SUSHELL or sushell to deter‐
mine what shell to start. If the environment variable is not set, it
will try to execute root's shell from /etc/passwd. If that fails, it
will fall back to /bin/sh.
AUTHORsulogin was written by Miquel van Smoorenburg for sysvinit and later
ported to util-linux by Dave Reisner and Karel Zak.
AVAILABILITY
The sulogin command is part of the util-linux package and is available
from Linux Kernel Archive ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-
linux/⟩.
util-linux July 2014 SULOGIN(8)
