set a global environment variable in linux that sticks when going root

Posted by Scott on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Scott
Published on 2011-06-25T05:04:58Z Indexed on 2011/06/25 16:24 UTC
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linux

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bash

When I SSH into a linux box, I want to have the /etc/profile file save the results of the whoami command to a global environment variable. if I were to go root with the command sudo su -, I do not want that command to run again when gonig root, I want it to stick with the result of whoami as my regular username from before I went root, and I need to access that variable as the root user even though it will run the /etc/profile file again when I go root. What can I do to only run that command once in the /etc/profile command?

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