root user help

Hi,

I am new to Mac, and have had my MacBook Pro for about 4 months. I am slowly switching my stuff over, but I am having difficulty accessing the user root.

I have looked for tutorials, but found nothing that Helps.

I have just installed a pkg of MySQL, but to start it I need to type

sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQLCOM/MySQLCOM start

in a terminal window. This asks for a password, but I don't have one for root.

How do I set the password for root?

I am running Mac OS 10.5.8

I do have a little experience with Unix if that helps.

You must be talking about the same password you use to authorize installation of new applications.

If you go to /System Preferences/Accounts you should find your administrator account with a button for changing your password. That will lead you to a window with a hint for the existing password, and text entry boxes for entering a new password.

I hope that helps.

Try your own user password. As always, be careful what you execute with root privileges.

thanks.

Can't remember what I did now, but think i did

$ sudo passwd root

this allowed me to set the root password. This then allowed me to start the MySQL service.

I am not sure of all the steps I took to get the PHP/MySQL working correctly together, but I did have to flush privileges. Something I have never come across before...