cant switch to root

S

scuzzo84

Registered
I did the following:

1. As a regular user, not admin, I opened netinfo manager
2. Authenticated using Admin credentials
3. Enabled Root
4. Set the root password
5. Opened up the terminal
6. Tried "su" entered the password and get "su: Sorry"

I even set the password again to somethign new and I still get
the same message. I have tried "su" , "su -" "su root" none work

Im guessing I have to add my regular user to the wheel group? But how come I dont see my username in /etc/group or even /etc/passwd

I was able to switch from the admin account to root but not from a regular account
 
That is called SECURITY! A Regular account should NEVER become root or have sudo privileges, only the Admin account will.
 
so there are 2 superlevels in os x ? root and admin ? I dont get that... And say I am logged in as a regular user and I want to edit /etc/group , I will have to su to admin and then su to root?
 
only root and admin accounts can use su and sudo by default. Thus, no normal user account is able to su to an admin account either.

It's possible to mess around with the settings for su and sudo, but it's a messy approach and can really mess up the whole su/sudo thing.

I'ld recommend another approach: ssh [account]@localhost
 
scuzzo84 said:
so there are 2 superlevels in os x ? root and admin ? I dont get that... And say I am logged in as a regular user and I want to edit /etc/group , I will have to su to admin and then su to root?
Click to expand...

There are not really two superlevels, what you have is that an Admin user is a member of wheel. Depending on what you are doing you really should not enable root and give it a password under any circumstances. Just "sudo -s" if you need a root shell.

In all my Mac & Unix experience I have yet to hear about any valid use for activating the root account besides supporting legacy software. If you are doing it you are almost certainly doing something wrong.
 
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