how to access homedir by root user

I want to access root user's home directory /root/. However following commands dont lead me to the root directory.

sudo -s

cd ~

It leads to the home dir of regular user. How to access /root when using sudo -s to login as root. I am using bash4 on ubuntu12.04.

2

4 Answers

Use the command:

sudo -i

To start in interactive session as root, which is treated as a login shell. This will set the HOME environment variable appropriately.

Try cd /root.

~ is normally just a shorthand for the home directory, so if you are the regular user person then cd ~ is the same as cd /home/person.

sudo -s

lets you to execute a command as another user (sudo)

Basically, you are still logged in with your regular user but that one single command after -s is executed by another user (root in your case).

$sudo -s ls -l // you are root on this line
$cd ~ // you are regular user on this line

This is the reason why you are getting redirected into the home of your regular user.

Doing such things in general is a bad idea, this is why Ubuntu disabled such forms of root login.

If you could give us a hint what do you want to achieve, somebody may figure out how to solve that without substituting your regular user shell with a root shell.

sudo su - root

su will switch the user

However you need to specify the user you wish to switch too e.g. - root

Root will be used as default if you don't specify the user

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