Re: Running a single acount in OS X Admin and User combined

In article <y9dd5l4cha8.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
William Mitchell <mitchell@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Jochem Huhmann <joh@xxxxxxx> writes:
>
> > sp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Király) writes:
> >
> > > I run out of a Standard account all the time, saving my admin account for
> > > testing, troubleshooing, etc. I almost never use the admin account and
> > > it is nearly always logged off. But I have modified /etc/sudoers so
> > > that I can become root from the command line in my Standard account if I
> > > need to.
> > >
> > > Is there any real difference, from a security standpoint, from what I
> > > have
> > > done, and simply running as an admin user all the time?
> >
> > Yes, you (and programs you run) don't have admin privileges and even
> > with sudo you need to supply a password. So there is no way that a evil
> > program can silently mess around with your system without your consent.
> >
>
> Do you know whether the admin account actually has any other actual
> privileges than being eligible for sudo? I suppose that the dialogs
> asking for an administrator's name and password might possibly check
> if the user named is a member of group "admin" - I can't check at the
> moment. Even if that were so, however it should just mean typing the
> name of the administrator account instead of the logged in account.

It's a member of the admin group.

--
Tom Stiller

PGP fingerprint = 5108 DDB2 9761 EDE5 E7E3
7BDA 71ED 6496 99C0 C7CF
.

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