Super user

hey, when I try a shutdown comand in the terminal it tells me that I am not the super user. but I am using the Admin account in my computer
Isn't the same account?
What is the password for the root account?
I tried 'su root' but the password for the Admin account didn't work
I don't remember any other password, should I? perhaps from when I started the computer for the first time?

Normally the root (super user) account is not enabled. Any user account should be able to shutdown the computer, unless that function is disabled.

How do I enable the shutdown function?

alejandrico said:

What is the password for the root account?
I tried 'su root' but the password for the Admin account didn't work
I don't remember any other password, should I? perhaps from when I started the computer for the first time?

Click to expand...

From Mac Help

The root user, sometimes called the superuser, is a special user account in Mac OS X that has read and write privileges to all areas of the file system. The root user can move and delete any file in the system, including system files not available to any other user. Because it's easy to damage the computer by moving or deleting some files, use the root account with extreme caution.

By default the root account is not active.

To enable the root user:

1. Open NetInfo Manager, located in Applications > Utilities.
2. Choose Security > Enable Root User and type a password for the root account. You may need to type an administrator password to make these changes.
3. Choose Apple menu > Log Out.
4. Choose Other in the Login window, type root in the Name field, and the root password in the Password field.

The root user should only be used for specific administration or monitoring tasks. After completing a task as the root user, log out of Mac OS X and log back in using a normal or administrator user account.

Disable root access if you do not use it often.

Well, acording to the shutdownn documentation, the command is for super users
So, at least I learned how to enable the superuser and finally use shutdown
Is there any other way to shutdown automatically the computer?
How about turn it on?
By the way now with the superuser enabled the login window shows a others account, I guess it is to login as root

alejandrico said:

Is there any other way to shutdown automatically the computer?
How about turn it on?

Click to expand...

Start Up & Shut Down
System Preferences/Energy Saver/Schedule

Great!!! that is better than running shutdown in a terminal window

Thank you

(I probably should have started for what I wanted to do)

But you can still su to root in Mac OS X as long as it is enabled like mentioned above. The xserves that I adminster I su - all the time

su is the same in Linux as it is in OS X. sudo is used to enable root access for a short period of time or for one command.

I have been told that it is a good idea to set up the root account (with a solid password), in case someone else gets into your Mac without you wanting...

/viz

give this a try

sudo reboot

Click to expand...

it'll ask you for your password. root a/c needs to be enabled.

to log in as root, try:

sudo su -

Click to expand...

Root user is not password prompted for serious changes; please never be on line as root