removing /var/empty on a non-system disk

[Gary Aitken]

On 5/28/2012 3:08 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:

>> On 5/25/2012 4:01 PM, Polytropon wrote:
>>>
>>> I should have mentioned that I did the (successful) test
>>> logging in as root (real console login). If you use "su -"
>>> or "su root", the effect should be the same. You can always
>>> check the success of your operation with the "ls -lo" command.
>>
>> Nope.  That was the problem.  I had logged in on the vty as normal user
>> and done su root.  Had to back all the way out and log in on the vty as
>> root to make it work.
>
> I'm going to guess that you did 'su root', not 'su - root'.  The two commands
> are *NOT* identical.   'su root' does not run the root 'login' scripts; thus
> environment variables (including path, user, logname etc.) are *not* set as
> they are on root login -- this causes some 'am i root' tests to fail.  OTOH,
> 'su - root' should be equivalent to a root login in all respects.

ahhhhhhh.. Thank you.  That explains a number of things.

Gary