Can't access root account

J

jrod7350

Registered
I just recieved my apple powerbook 667, and I can't seem to access the root account on the computer. The account I created at the begining of startup is an adminstrator account, but it's not the root, and so doesn't have all privledges. What's the password to the root or superuser? When I type in my account password at the password promt after typing in "su" in the terminal I get a wrong password error. Is this something I'll have to contact apple about? Thanks.

Jrod
 
try one of these commands:

sudo su

sudo /bin/tcsh

sudo passwd root

then you shuold become root unless you do that last one. As soon as you have the root prompt, type in:

passwd root

then change the root passwd and it will be enabled. You can do this thru netinfo manager but if you can type, then you can enable root account before Netinfo Manager is even started.

Justin
 
Just a word of caution: Once you enable the root account (i.e., giving root a password), DON'T log in as root. You can su to root in a shell all you like, but if you try running Finder as root, it will cause you nothing but pain. Basically, Finder writes a bunch of global temp files. Once you've done that as root, nobody else will have the appropriate permissions to move or change them, so Finder won't work correctly as anyone else.
 
Chances are you don't need to enable the root account. If you ever need to use root privileges in Terminal, just use 'sudo -s' and give it your admin password. That gets you a root shell to do whatever you need. Then, 'exit' back to your own shell when you're done.

Leaving the root account disabled when you don't need to log in to it keeps your Mac a little more secure.
 
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