Sudo not working

Hi,
On my computer, I have a standard account and an administrator account. When type in "sudo ls" from either account in terminal, it says "sorry, try again" when I type in the administrator password and "<username> is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported." I know the administrator password, though, and it works fine when logging in. How do I fix it so sudo works?

Is your root account enabled?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1528

sudo ls

should then prompt you for a pass word root does not need to be enabled. the pass word should be your administrator accounts pass word.

Still not working

This is what happens:

$ sudo ls
Password: <I enter the correct administrator password here>
Sorry, try again.
Password:
Sorry, try again.
Password:
Sorry, try again.
sudo: 3 incorrect password attempts
$

Is there some file that is corrupted?

Are you using your password? Use the password for the currently logged in account.

Does OS X have an /etc/sudoers listing? I'm at work right now, so no OS X boxes are available. However, I often have to add users to the /etc/sudoers file in AIX.

XJ-linux said:

Does OS X have an /etc/sudoers listing? I'm at work right now, so no OS X boxes are available. However, I often have to add users to the /etc/sudoers file in AIX.

Click to expand...

Yes, It does have that listing.

You /etc/sudoers file should look something like this:

# Runas alias specification

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL) ALL
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Uncomment to allow people in group wheel to run all commands
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Same thing without a password
# %wheel ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

# Samples
# %users ALL=/sbin/mount /cdrom,/sbin/umount /cdrom
# %users localhost=/sbin/shutdown -h now

It should be like that by default. If not, you can use something like TextEdit or nano to edit it. Or, you could use visudo as it is recommended. The issue here though is that you'll need root privileges to edit it and if you can't sudo anything, we have a bit of a problem. I'm at a bit of a loss here as to how to edit/view it if you don't have the appropriate password.

Since this appears to be a pass word issue. Be sure the caps lock key is off.

When in doubt, log off or reboot. Meaning disable or enable root access in keychain, and then log out then in to reread the profile. It'd reboot to restart services and recycle config files.