Re: Admin account suddenly changing to a standard one

On Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:23:45 +0100, George wrote:
Dear All,

I am having the following problem on Panther: I was trying to change the
root password by typing su at the terminal's prompt.

Why are you doing that? What are you trying to accomplish that can't be done
using sudo?

I then read an
article online saying that you could achieve it by opening up NetInfo
Manager, then selecting users and editing the root's user password with
the password of a user you already know what it is (as you would be
copying asterisks as NetInfo shows hashed passwords). I did that (su kept
not working) and I changed the short name of one of my other accounts
(with admin privileges, the only one having them). Now, when I rebooted
the system I could login but the account whose short name I changed - the
account with the admin privileges - is no longer recognised as an admin
one, but as a standard one. When I try to change the short name back, it
will tell I have no rights to update the /Users/newshortname copy.

Is there anything I can do to make it an admin account again (apologies if
it sounds confusing, I tried to give every detail possible)?

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Thanks in advance.

It's clear that you have no business fiddling with system internals. If
you will explain what you were really trying to do, several people will
probably explain how to proceed without using su or NetInfo Manager. The
sudo command gives you temporary root access, which is generally all you
need for administrative tasks.

As to solving your predicament, I have never had to do this, but I
believe a simple solution is to boot into single-user mode (hold down
cmd-S while booting). You will get a text-based screen with several
messages, ending with a prompt:

localhost:/ root#

(Note: you are now running as root. This is not, however, the
recommended way of running routine administrative tasks, which is to use
the sudo command while running under an admin account.)

There will be messages explaining that the file system is mounted
read-only. You want to delete a certain file, which means you must first
mount the filesystem in read-write mode. The instructions for doing that
are on the screen above the prompt. The commands are:

/sbin/fsck -fy
/sbin/mount -uw /

Once that is done, you should type the commands:

rm /var/db/.AppleSetupDone
reboot

On restart, you will go through the procedure to create a new admin
account, the same as when you turned on the machine for the first time.


--
Dave Seaman
Oral Arguments in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case heard May 17
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/>
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: hi all..
    ... And with sudo, I certainly wouldn't because they already have root. ... If you somehow had access to my account right now, ... install an effective key logger without root. ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Easy way/script to add another user like me?
    ... have to do to give a user sudo privileges is to add them to the ... # Members of the admin group may gain root privileges ... of cracking the root password because they already know the ...
    (Ubuntu)
  • Re: Forest to Child -- Permissions
    ... My account can login to all the DCs and has full administrator priv. ... first DC in the root. ... the member servers only ... never happen unless some admin has been mucking about. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.dns)
  • Re: hi all..
    ... and someone gets access your shell account, ... Only root can install an su binary. ... Of course, if I have sudo ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Forest to Child -- Permissions
    ... My account can login to all the DCs and has full administrator priv. ... first DC in the root. ... the member servers only ... never happen unless some admin has been mucking about. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.dns)