Ticket Options

Question Profile

Question Details

TICKET ARCHIVE -> sudoers

macshaun - Nov 7, 2007 - 7:30 pm

Hey Guys,

I'm a recent convert to os x and am wondering how you edit the sudoers file so non-admin accounts can have root access through terminal.

gsahli - Nov 8, 2007 - 7:34 am

Sorry, that doesn't make sense to me.
Non-admin users are users you have decided Not to grant sudo access to.
If you want them to have sudo access, make them admin users in System Prefs > Accounts.

macshaun - Nov 8, 2007 - 4:05 pm

Thanks for the response gsahli.
I always throught that for general use you should only use a non-admin account......being able to su - from this account would be handy so as not having to log off and back in all the time. I currently have a non-admin account that i use for everyday use, an admin account which is basically never logged into and is just used when prompted for authentication to install applications or make system changes.

Is there no way for me to edit the sudoers to allow me root access from the non-admin account.

Pardon my ignorance.

gsahli - Nov 8, 2007 - 9:24 pm

I want to say again that Admin users ARE sudo users. If you give them sudo authority they will probably become admin users at the graphical user level, too. But if you want to experiment, you can use this command in Terminal (which uses the vi editor):
sudo visudo

macshaun - Nov 11, 2007 - 9:30 pm

My apologies gsahli, looks like i got myself confused. I can run commands using the sudo but just cannot switch to root using su -..........any ideas on how this can be done...once again from a non-admin user.....?

gsahli - Nov 12, 2007 - 7:21 am

OK, looks like you got a used Mac and have the password and you want to get rid of the old user?

To enable root, in 10.3. and 10.4, go to the Netinfo Manager utility Security menu.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.h...en/mh1549.html

macshaun - Nov 12, 2007 - 3:41 pm

i bought this macbook new and its currently running Leopard.....i can su - when logged in as the admin user just not when logged in as a standard user.....

gsahli - Nov 12, 2007 - 6:56 pm

As far as I can tell, there is no way to do what you want.

Sorry I can't help.