Man page 1 : su-to-root

su-to-root - A simple script to give an `interactive' front-end to su. It can be used in menu entry commands to ask for the root password

su-to-root [-X] [-p <user>] -c <command>

Most menu entries simply start an editor or a game or whatever. But some menu entries would like to give the user the ability to change important settings in the system, that require root privileges. su-to-root can be used to ask for the root password.

-c <command> The command to execute as a string. This option is mandatory.

-p <user> The name of the user to change to, instead of root.

-X The command is a X11 program that does not require a terminal. This is to be used with menu entries that declare needs="X11".

SU_TO_ROOT_X Select the su-like program called by su-to-root -X. Supported values are gksu, kdesu, kde4su, ktsuss and sux. kde4su denotes the KDE4 version of kdesu.

When this variable is not set su-to-root will currently try to use gksu, kdesu, kde4su, ktsuss, sux and the built-in code, in that order with the exception that under a KDE session, kdesu and kde4su are prefered over gksu.

The exact set of programs to try and their order is subject to change without notice.

SU_TO_ROOT_SU Select the su-like program used in text mode. Supported values are sudo, sux and su, the later being the default.

/etc/su-to-rootrc

~/.su-to-rootrc su-to-root will source these files at startup in this order. This lets you define and modify the environment variables above without restarting your X session.

su-to-root is distributed under the GNU General Public License. (GPL 2.0 or greater).

Joost Witteveen <>

X11 support by Morten Brix Pedersen and Bill Allombert <>

update-menus(1), menufile(5), /usr/share/doc/menu/html