cannot execute binary file

[Luciano Miguel Ferreira Rocha]

On Sun, May 09, 2004 at 05:30:32PM +0200, Edmund Mergl wrote:
> can anyone shed some light on this:
> 
> [root at fc2]# su - mergl /bin/date
> /bin/date: /bin/date: cannot execute binary file
> 
> this happens with any executable unless it's a script.

/bin/date is passed as an argument to the shell:
/bin/bash /bin/date

What you want is: su - mergl -c /bin/date
that runs:
/bin/bash -c /bin/date

Regards,
Luciano Rocha