#1003059 ITP: su-exec -- switch user and group id, setgroups and exec

Package:
wnpp
Source:
wnpp
Submitter:
Date:
2025-11-29 16:50:07 UTC
Severity:
wishlist
#1003059#5
Date:
2022-01-03 14:21:48 UTC
From:
To:
* Package name : su-exec
   Version: 0.2, latest commit 2019-02-26
   Upstream Author : Natanael Copa <ncopa@alpinelinux.org>
* URL : https://github.com/ncopa/su-exec
* License : MIT
   Description : switch user and group id, setgroups and exec

This is an alternative to gosu written in C.

It is minimal and already present in alpine linux.
It would be useful to have it for container environments.
#1003059#14
Date:
2022-01-05 11:09:57 UTC
From:
To:
In Debian the essential util-linux package already provides "setpriv".
Is there any reason to use su-exec instead of it?

Ansgar
#1003059#19
Date:
2022-01-05 11:30:16 UTC
From:
To:
Thanks Ansgar,

I did not know setpriv, I will test if it can replace su-exec on my
containers.

Probably the main reason could be binary size on certain small
systems/containers:

$ du -sh /usr/sbin/gosu
2.3M	/usr/sbin/gosu
$ du -sh /usr/bin/setpriv
52K	/usr/bin/setpriv
$ du -sh /usr/bin/su-exec
16K	/usr/bin/su-exec

Best Regards,
Matteo

Il 2022-01-05 12:09 Ansgar ha scritto: