The root user in Mac OS X is disabled by default. Follow the steps in this article to enable and use it, if needed.
Important: If you are not familiar with the meaning of "root user," read this entire article to learn important precautionary information before using the root user. You must have an administrator account and password to complete the steps below.
Note: If you are using Mac OS X Server, root is already enabled by default. Advice contained in this article to disable root access when used infrequently does not apply to Mac OS X Server. It should remain enabled. For more information on related behavior, see this article.
Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.3, Mac OS X 10.2, Mac OS X 10.1, Mac OS X 10.0, Mac OS X 10.5
About the root user
The user named "root" is a special user in UNIX-style operating systems that has read and write privileges to all areas of the file system. The root user should only be used for specific administration or monitoring tasks. After completing a task as the root user, you should log out of Mac OS X and log back in using a normal or administrator account. You should disable root access if you do not use it often.
The root user does not appear in Users or Accounts preferences.
Important notes
Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Note: If you are troubleshooting an issue that prevents you from logging in as an administrator, follow the steps in this article to enable the root user.
Mac OS X 10.4.x or earlier
How to log in as root
Use these steps for Mac OS X 10.2 or later:
Mac OS X 10.0 to 10.1.5
After enabling the root user, you must log out from Mac OS X and log back in as the root user. Logging in to Mac OS X from a list of usernames is the default behavior for later versions of Mac OS X. Logging in by typing your username in a text entry field is the default behavior in earlier versions of Mac OS X. You can choose either method in Login preferences. The root user does not appear in the list, so you need the text entry option. If necessary, follow these steps to change the login method to text entry:
Follow these steps to log in as root:
Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Mac OS X 10.4.x or earlier
What is the root directory?
It helps to know that the term root is used in two distinct ways: The "root user" and the "root directory." The root directory is the highest directory level of a disk. The files and folders you see when you open (double-click) your hard disk icon are the contents of that disk's root directory. A directory is represented graphically as a folder. You may know your home directory as your "home folder." The terms "folder" and "directory" are generally interchangeable.
A user's short name is also the name of his home directory.
The Finder and the Terminal show different contents for the root directory. Some items in the root directory are made invisible when viewed in the Finder. This reduces visual clutter and enhances simplicity. Users familiar with UNIX-style command line may use the Terminal utility to view everything in a directory.
MacPorts is a package manager that makes installing open source programs much easier. In particular, trying to install a large program like Wine without the help of a package manager would be tremendously difficult. Fortunately, MacPorts itself is simple to install.
$) at the beginning.copy all as a one line..$ echo export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:\$PATH$'\n'export MANPATH=/opt/local/man:
\$MANPATH | sudo tee -a /etc/profile
The Terminal will ask for your password: this is the password to the
Admin account on your computer. As a security measure, the Terminal
does not display anything as you type, not even asterisks (*). Type your password anyway, and press enter. If you ran the command correctly, the Terminal should respond with:
export PATH=/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:$PATH
export MANPATH=/opt/local/man:$MANPATH
If you didn't get that response, it might be because the Admin account doesn't have a password set. Setting a password is required.
4. Close the Terminal. MacPorts has been installed!
Let's start using MacPorts right away! To tell MacPorts that you want it to install Wine for you, all you have to do is open up the Terminal again and enter this command (without the $):
$ sudo port install wine
You may be asked for your Admin account password again. The Terminal will start displaying lots of information. This is absolutely normal — MacPorts is just keeping you updated on what it's doing. This flow of information will be your guide to let you know whether or not the computer is still working. It will take a while for the install to finish: at least half an hour. As long as the Terminal keeps on giving you more information about what it's doing, don't interrupt it. Feel free to leave and do something else while the computer is installing Wine. When the Terminal stops giving you more information and is ready for another command, Wine is installed and ready to go!
Note: If you get an error message at this step that reads error: C compiler cannot create executables, it usually means you forgot to install Xcode. See the requirements.
To install a Windows program, first download the installer file: it should end with .exe. Remember the location you put it, and open up the Terminal again. cd to the location, and use ls to make sure you can see the installer file. Once you are in the correct directory, run the installer through Wine by running the following command in the Terminal:
$ wine $INSTALLER.exe
Where $INSTALLER is the name of the installer file. For example, if the installer file is named setup.exe, you would run:
$ wine setup.exe
X11 will open (if it isn't already), and soon you will see a regular graphical Windows installer. Click through it, and you're done!
Open up the Terminal and run this to get to your Program Files folder:
$ cd ~/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/ Run ls to see what programs you have installed. Pick a program, and enter its directory using cd. (If the folder has a space in it, you must type a \ before the space. For example, Program\ Files. If you're having problems, try using tab autocomplete.) There should be a file that ends in .exe: this is the program file. Type this into Terminal:
$ wine $PROGRAM.exe Where $PROGRAM is the name of the .exe file. X11 will open (if it isn't already), and the program will pop up, ready to use! It will probably open fullscreen: to reduce it in size, go open the Window menu from the Mac OS X menu bar, and select Zoom Window. You can then resize the program normally. Enjoy using Windows on your Mac, freely and legally!
Wine is an open source program. That means that programmers around the world are continually improving it, adding new features and squashing bugs. If you don't update Wine, though, it will never get those improvements, so it's generally a good idea to check for updates every so often. We can use MacPorts to keep Wine up to date: it's easy! Just run this command:
$ sudo port selfupdate && sudo port upgrade outdated Once again, you will need to enter your Admin account password. With this command, MacPorts will first update itself, if any updates are available. It will then find all the outdated software it knows about (including Wine) and upgrade them all to the latest version. Checking for updates isn't strictly necessary, as Wine runs quite well currently. However, it's a good idea to run this command every few months or so.
If you try Wine and you don't like it, uninstalling it is easy. Just run this command:
$ sudo port uninstall wine And MacPorts will helpfully remove Wine from your computer. However, in order to install Wine, MacPorts also had to install many other small programs that Wine relies upon to work correctly. (That's why the install process takes so long!) If you want to remove these as well, it's simplest to just delete your entire MacPorts installation with the following command:
$ sudo rm -rf /opt That command should remove everything that you installed in this tutorial, including MacPorts, Wine, and all the other programs MacPorts installed to get Wine to work correctly.
So why would you ever use the first of those two commands, rather than the second? Well, MacPorts can install a lot more than just Wine. There are a whole bunch of nifty programs you can easily install using MacPorts, such as GraphViz (a very swanky graphing tool), Battle for Wesnoth (a turn-based strategy game), and GIMP (an image editor, like Adobe Photoshop). And just like Wine, every program available on MacPorts is free and open source. Even if you decide Wine isn't for you, MacPorts might have something else you might like. Take a look!
By Gayan Ranasinghe
This trick works with mobitel network in sri lanka.And i must say that this is not 100% perfect broadband.This procedure is a little annoying and not totally comfortable BUT its FREE gprs after all!
This trick may be useful for you mainly when using gprs on your phone.you can use this TRICK to download small files less than 800kb or so.(generally,mobitel charges 1cent per kb,so technically you get 8 rupees of gprs for FREE! per session)
Its really simple.Do you have a mobitel connection in your mobile?
theres one condition for our little trick to work
***you must have less than 1.50rs & more than 1.00rs credit to be able to perform this TRICK & basic knowledge of gprs usage***
now open your opera mini browser (if you don't have opera mini installed in your mobile,you can download for free @ www.operamini.com)and browse pages as usual.you will only be able to browse for about 30seconds and you will be able to download upto 800-900kb of data in that time(if you have 3g in your phone,depends on your device).then you have to disconnect your current connection using connection manager(in Nokia phones) or the relevant utility depending on the phone.then you can restart browsing.
Based on testing performed by Opera Software, this device supports Opera Mini 4.
Problems connecting? Make sure your phone is correctly set up for Internet access.
I use a Macintosh. It says
Launch the Apple Menu. Select "System Preferences." Then click "Network Control
Panels" and click "TCP/IP."
Check the IP address in the list of connections. Your Mac has an IP address, and some of your electronic devices may also have their own IP 
Visit a website such as What Is My IP for a utility that reads your Mac IP address (see Resources below). It will automatically detect your IP address and provide it for you.
Obtain a new IP address from your Internet
Get the new IP address from your ISP, because if two computers have the same address, neither one of them will be able to connect to the Internet.
Realize each computer connecting to the Internet must have its own unique IP address. Have your ISP assign one that nobody else is using or you will waste time trying to guess the right number.
Select the network configuration that has the green dot next to it, from the "TCP/IP" screen you opened before. This is your active connection and will probably be the "Built-In-Ethernet" option in the drop-down box. Then click the "Configure" button at the bottom of the dialog box.
Click the "Configure IPV4" drop down menu next and choose "Manually."
Type in your new IP address in the box under the TCP/IP menu. Simply delete the number that is in there and enter your new one.
Click "Save." Your address has now been changed.
Does this mean that Mac’s are less secure than PC’s? Not really, since they’re still such a small percentage of the market that they’re not under heavy attack by malware. Even though the capability exists to take advantage of this vulnverability, the return on time and effort is still a lot better on the Windows side for malware writers. Of course, someone could always decide that Macs are an underutilized target for malware and create something interesting.
Problem: Enterprise is under Denial Of Service Attack that brings down key elements of the business or the whole network at all.
To track the attacker is the first step in handling the attack and unless the flood is coming from inside (most probably not in a well managed LAN) you will need help of your Service Provider to find out the origin. Unfortunately Service Provider’s (SP) backbone is not well suited for such forensics, as its business role is
to provide uninterrupted connectivity to ALL the clients , not only you, so SP will not enable ACLs/ip accounting/Netflow on their backbone to identify where the attack is coming from . And if source Ip of the attack is spoofed you can’t do much .
For such cases Cisco came with the nice feature called
ip source tracking that will gather flow statistics for specific destination
IPs (of victim) and periodically will export them for viewing, and will do all this without overloading the backbone router it is enabled on (Of course relevant if your SP is using Cisco gear) . Here are details:
– Enable it globally for the victim IP , here IP being attacked is 63.45.33.22
Edge(config)#ip source-track 63.45.33.22
- If you want (and if this is being done by SP they will not) you may create log entries:
Edge1(config)#ip source-track syslog-interval 2
Then you will see in logs (good for reminding to disable this afterwards) :
May 28 10:55:47.105: %DOS_TRACK-5-CFG: IP Source Tracker configured for 1 hosts
- Also you may define how often to export gathered info to be viewed (seems to depend on the platform ) :
Edge(config)#ip source-track export-interval 60
- And finally , you see the data accumulated so far :
Edge#sh ip source-track
Address SrcIF Bytes Pkts Bytes/s Pkts/s
63.45.33.22 Fa0/0 141G 485M 8244 141
Most important here will be the Source interface (in this router there is only 1 ingress interface , in real backbone you will have few feeds) where you see most of the incoming traffic for this destination IP. Then you (SP) would go to the upstream router connected to this local interface, enable the same source tracking and so on. Up to the last point in the backbone where the attacking traffic enters
the backbone of SP out of some upstream SP . Then SP would have option to contact the abuse of this upstream provider for them to investigate the issue further, or at least divert the attack to the black hole at the entry point, so end client would not be affected at all.
Whatever the case may be, there are things that can be done to improve upon the «default» N95 battery life time. Improvements come from tweaking a few, selected settings from their default values.
I have divided this authoritative N95 battery tweaking guide into two parts: first I will show you a few basic battery friendly optimizations and habits that can be employed by everyone. Next, I provide a few advanced tweaks that on the one hand might not fit everybody, on the other hand result in the most significant improvements.
Right, let's get cracking!
Basic Optimizations
Rocket Science Tweaks
Enjoy … and by the way, I have no idea if employing these tweaks will actually lead to a 328% improvement, but it is a nice figure, don't you think?
Yesterday I found out that Mobitel (Sri Lanka) don’t have their GPRS/MMS settings online like Dialog GSM. Even Google couldn’t find them for me! After a little bit of searching online, I finally gave in and called Mobitel’s customer support. After listening to a few songs and a recording that kept reminding that the call was valuable to them and will be attended to soon, I was finally able to get the settings from them. So to save you the pain here they are:
GPRS Settings:
Access Point: ISP
WAP Settings
- Data bearer: Packet data
- Access point name: isp
- Authentication: Normal
- Homepage: http://wap.mobitel.lk
- Network type : IPv4
- Phone ip address : Atomatic
- Proxy serv. address : 192.168.050.163
- Proxy port number : 0
MMS Settings
- Connection name – MobitelMMS
- Data bearer – Packet data
- Access point name – wapmms
- Authentication – Normal
- Homepage – http://192.168.50.165
- Network type : IPv4
- Phone ip address : Atomatic
- Name server : Atomatic
- Proxy serv. address : 192.168.050.163
- Proxy port number : 8080
Now that Mobitel is supporting 3.5G HSPA technology I’m sure they would add this information to their website soon.
+1-856-317-7200
+1-856-317-7272+1-856-317-7200Business laptops are a treasure for every hacker or corporate spy. The average corporate laptop is full of business email, confidential documents and more often then not, the user of the laptop has the same passwords on the laptop as on his corporate application and e-mail.
Here is a truly bizarre example of what could happen: Lifetime of FREE BEER for Laptop
Private laptops are also very interesting (especially those of celebrities)
And yet, the security awareness of the owners of laptops is somewhat lacking. So here are 5 simple rules that can help you keep your laptop safe:
Further reading
Vista BitLocker at Microsoft
TrueCrypt portal
Comparison of Disk Encryption Software at Wikipedia
Firefox users take note: You need to do this. Now. As in, this instant. More savvy users are probably already familiar with editing Firefox’s configuration file but whether you’re a computer rookie or a seasoned veteran, Gnoted has issued a handful of tweaks that really get Firefox cooking. As much as we all love the fox, it can get a bit slow on occasion - especially if you’re like us and have 35 open tabs spread across four windows at any given time. By tweaking the way Firefox handles some caching functions, you can dramatically improve page load speed and even prevent Firefox from hogging your system resources while minimized. If you don’t currently have any experience playing with your configuration file, don’t be scared. Just follow the simple instructions, take your time and if you want a security blanket to squeeze, jot down each setting before you change it so you can always restore the default configuration if need be. So without further ado, hit the jump and get tweaking - just remember to restart Firefox when you’re done.
1. Type “about:config” (no quotes) in the adress bar in the browser.
2. Find “browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewer”
3. Set it’s value to “0“;(Zero)
1. Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit Enter.
(Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.)
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 10.
This means it will make 10 requests at once.
3. Lastly, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0“;.(Zero)
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives. If you’re using a broadband connection you’ll load pages faster now.
Optionally (for even faster web browsing) here are some more options for your about:config (you might have to create some of these entries by Right Click –> New– > Interger or String
network.dns.disableIPv6: set “false”
“content.notify.backoffcount”: set “5“; (Five)
“plugin.expose_full_path”: set “true”.
“ui.submenuDelay”: set “0; (zero)
This little hack will drop Firefox’s RAM usage down to 10 Mb when minimized:
1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter “config.trim_on_minimize”. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.
