Issue
I've installed jenkins and I'm trying to get into a shell as Jenkins to add an ssh key. I can't seem to su into the jenkins user:
[root@pacmandev /]# sudo su jenkins
[root@pacmandev /]# whoami
root
[root@pacmandev /]# echo $USER
root
[root@pacmandev /]#
The jenkins user exists in my /etc/passwd file. Runnin su jenkins asks for a password, but rejects my normal password. sudo su jenkins doesn't seem to do anything; same for sudo su - jenkins. I'm on CentOS.
Solution
jenkins is a service account, it doesn't have a shell by design. It is generally accepted that service accounts shouldn't be able to log in interactively.
I didn't answer this one initially as it's a duplicate of a question that has been moved to server fault. I should have answered rather than linked to the answer in a comment.
if for some reason you want to login as jenkins, you can do so with:
sudo su -s /bin/bash jenkins
Answered By - thekbb
Answer Checked By - Cary Denson (JavaFixing Admin)
