How To Set The Root Password on Mac OS X?

I have just switched to Mac, from Windows and Linux. I have had my new Mac (a Power Mac G5, OS X 10.4.6) for about a week now. Today, for the first time, I tried out sudo and just su itself. Trouble in paradise...

su prompted me for a password. At no time during the set up of this Mac was I ever asked to enter a root password - I had hoped it simply hadn't been set, and typing "su" would just log me in as root. Is there a default password that all Macs come with that I can use? Alternately, is there some way of setting the root password at this point?

For sudo, once I get past being able to log in as root, I will need to find the Mac OS X equivalent of what in Linux would be /etc/sudoers. Where does this live on the Mac?

Thanks!

There may be a different way to do it than this, but trust me...it works. And you can look and ask around, it does work:

Get your OSX restore/install and put it in. Click on Install Mac OS. You'll be asked to restart. Do it. You're not going to resinstall, just keep going through windows of the installer until you get to one called utilities or something. one of the choices is reset password. change the password to something you know and then quit the installer.

Your admin pass word should work with sudo. To use su you would need antohter user. As you said with root. The root user is disabled by default with OS X. You will have to enalbe root and give it a pass word to be able to su to it.

So, the root user ID doesn't exist at all? That would be consistent with what I see in the Users preference panel. This is just fine if I can set up a sudoers file somewhere, so that I don't have to go through the password challenge/response for every "sudo" based command. Is there a Mac OS X equivalent of sudoers?

Navigate to /Applications/Utilities and open NetInfo Manager. Select Security > Authenticate and type your administrator password (login password). Now go Security > Enable Root User, from there it will be pretty obvious. To disable the root user (suggested when you are done) open NetInfo Manager again, authenticate and then disable the root user from the Security menu.

--Cheers

mac57 said:

So, the root user ID doesn't exist at all? That would be consistent with what I see in the Users preference panel. This is just fine if I can set up a sudoers file somewhere, so that I don't have to go through the password challenge/response for every "sudo" based command. Is there a Mac OS X equivalent of sudoers?

Click to expand...

Are you logged in as an administrator when you are trying to use sudo? All users with admin privs should be in the sudoers list by default. You shouldn't be prompted for a password.

Thanks all. When I am being prompted for the sudo password, I have just opened a Terminal window and typed "sudo some-command". There is only one user on this machine, and that is me. I do have admin priveledges - I am asked for the password from time to time on software installs and it works. Based on what you said, I should be in the sudoers file then?

If I remember correctly, being in the sudoers file will only allow you to use the sudo command. You will always have to enter the pass word when using it.

rman said:

If I remember correctly, being in the sudoers file will only allow you to use the sudo command. You will always have to enter the pass word when using it.

Click to expand...

That is correct.

TBoblp said:

There may be a different way to do it than this, but trust me...it works. And you can look and ask around, it does work:

Get your OSX restore/install and put it in. Click on Install Mac OS. You'll be asked to restart. Do it. You're not going to resinstall, just keep going through windows of the installer until you get to one called utilities or something. one of the choices is reset password. change the password to something you know and then quit the installer.

Click to expand...

On 10.4 it's the second install screen (when booted from the DVD) and it's under utilities.

I have the root account enabled on all the Mac in my house.