I am writing a zenity script that is run through gksu/tdesu/kdesu/whateversu. After the user enters the password, from that point on the script sees `whoami` as root. Is there a way to determine the original non-root user who launched the script?

In a terminal I can run 'ps aux | $PPID' to pull the user name. Doesn't work when the script is run through whateversu. That is, unlike the terminal, $PPID is owned by root and not the non-root user.

Thanks.

I don't know too much about zenity, but you say you're using it in a script so I'm assuming you're using zenity with (ba)sh, in which case you can just export a variable with the output of "whoami" BEFORE the su occurs..

That is, before the {gk,tde,kde,whatever}su is launched, use something like:

I don't know zenity and maybe my solution is not what you want.
Have you tried with "who am i" command?

This would have been nice:Unfortunately the "su" command doesn't start a process... (And if several users would have typed su you would have needed to select the good process).

But if you know that the "su" command is typed from a directory owned by the user, just do this:Or just that:

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Environment variables might be what you're looking for. kdesu sets $KDESU_USER with the username calling it, after authenticating. I don't know about gksu and the others, but they probably do as well.

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I just noticed I referenced whateversu and that actually would be whateversudo. No difference to the core of the thread, which is to know the actual user launching the script.

My main challenge is the script is run directly with whateversudo. I posted and quit last night discouraged. The moment my head hit the pillow I decided I would use two scripts. The first script would be a front-end to the main script and would pass $USER as a parameter to the main script. If no parameter was passed the main script would display an error dialog and quit.

That said, today I find Didier's post with the stat command. I am shaking my head because that command seems to resolve the problem. I looked at the stat man page and I see the connection with the %U parameter, but I do not pretend to understand all of the magic.

Regardless, thank you!

I need to perform more testing with the script but hopefully in a few days I tag the thread as solved.

That sounds like an idea. With some trial and error I finally got some variables I could use: $SUDO_USER and $SUDO_UID. The strange part is I can't simply pull the variable directly. To extract the variables I have to pipe the env command through grep and sed. Nonetheless, between this method and Didier's I can pull all information to fully confirm the user's identity.

Thank you!

what about the printenv command?

or

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Well, gollygeewillikers Mr. Wilson! Yes, that works!

I think the printenv command is nice for scripting situations like you describe. You can check the output, which can be assigned to a variable. But you can also check the return value of the command to check success, as well. Gives you a nice choice of handling.