Hey all,
I have a cronjob that runs every midnight that shuts down all my uml(user-mode-linux) VM's, backs them up, and starts them up again. However, i've run into a few issues!

Basically, i have the cronjob run the script as root, but i want a part of the script.. where my VM's get restarted, to run as a different user.

I tried to use su - workshop(workshop being the appropriate user)
that hung, so i tried
su - workshop -c `openvt -fvc 2 /filesystems/start.sh`
but that didn't work either(plus i have 6 uml's that i have to restart in their own tty, so for the sake of ease, i'd rather have one command to su to workshop, then quit that part)

Is this possible? am i missing a simple command?

Cheers!
Miche

Try doing it with 2 scripts - ie create one script called "runasuser.sh" that contains the commands to be run by hte user then use:
su - workshop -c "/path/to/runasuser.sh"

I think the problem you had was that you used backtics and not quotes.

su - workshop -c `openvt -fvc 2 /filesystems/start.sh`

try

su - workshop -c 'openvt -fvc 2 /filesystems/start.sh'

` is not the same as '

Ahh.. thanks.. the ' works fine.. i s'pose i'll just do it that way.

Thanks!