[help] No Administrator User!

My friends have encountered a rather interesting problem with their iBook...

They orginally had 3 users all with administrator privelidges, but due to a power struggle they somehow have reduced all three users to mere standard users.

We've tried booting into single user and tried to 'sudo passwd root' but that didn't do anything... as root we couldn't do much

Currently the computer is usable, but no settings can be changed at all which makes life very hard... can't even install an update of Safari or Konfabulator

I'm not mac-savvy so I'm not much help heh, my basic linux knowledge seems no help neither...

Any help would be greatly appreciated

#127986

boot from Mac OS X CD, open disk utility, reset the root password

#128129

When you boot into single user mode, you ARE root, no need to sudo. So just type "passwd" and you should be able to change it. Passwd prevents you from picking a crappy password sometimes, so make it good.

#128170

I think they tried doing the boot from CD, but given the list to choose from were unable to reset the password given none had administrator rights... I'll have to ask them again since the iBook isn't here atm

I can't remember if we tried just typing 'passwd' ... heh, I think we did, but given how many combinations of commands we tried I'll give it a go again and report what happened

There was another thing I did want to ask tho. While in single user mode is there a way to add a user with admin rights? I know in Linux you use the 'adduser' command, but that doesn't appear to be available... we've even gone to the point of trying variations on that theme 'useradd', etc hehe, obviously getting no where

Funny thing is they took it into AppleCare and the ppl there said they've never seen a situation like this one...

#128268

Is there a command in Darwin to elevate a user to admin?

#128948

Originally posted by starforge@Mar 14 2004, 07:44 AM

Is there a command in Darwin to elevate a user to admin?

Yeah type this 'thiscommandtotalyelimanatestheuseofarootuserandweputitintomaketheosunsecure'

I say when in stryfe reformat.

#128952

Its now become such a challenge that we'll re-install when we've worked out how to fix it... so far the fixing isn't going anywhere other than adding to our frustration hehe

#128954