Using export USER=myName doesn't change the output of whoami

Question

$ whoami
MatsP
$ g++ -Wall -std=c++0x getenv.cpp 
$ ./a.out
MatsP
$ export USER=DonaldDuck
$ ./a.out
DonaldDuck

but for me it doesn't work. I am in a Debian machine. I used export -p and indeed the variable changed. I refreshed the bachrc, still nothing. How to achiece the above? whoami displays the default value.

What do you mean "does not work"? `whoami` produce the actual user login regardless of `USER` environment variable. — cuonglm, Apr 05 '16 at 13:23
So `getenv("USER")` is changed by `export USER=myName` but `whoami` remains the same? — traveller, Apr 05 '16 at 13:25
Ok but using the code I linked above the output from `getenv("USER")` remains the same. — traveller, Apr 05 '16 at 13:31
please paste the output from YOUR system instead of the example. — tlund, Apr 05 '16 at 13:32
The output from my system using `getenv("USER")`is my username. Although I use `export USER=aName` to change the it. — traveller, Apr 05 '16 at 13:35

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited Apr 05 '16 at 14:15

1

whoami on Linux does not read the USER variable.

On a "regular system" (meaning not using for example LDAP) it just does a geteuid(2) system call to get your current effective userid and then reads /etc/passwd to look up your username.

edited Apr 05 '16 at 14:15

heemayl

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answered Apr 05 '16 at 13:25

tlund

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Ok, but why on my system the code from the link above doesn't work? I used `getenv("USER")` and saw my username and then tried to change it using `export USER=aName` and next time i run `getenv("USER")` it gives the original value. – traveller Apr 05 '16 at 13:30

Using export USER=myName doesn't change the output of whoami

1 Answers1