Saturday, September 26, 2009

nabling and using the "root" user in Mac OS X

Summary

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.

Products Affected

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

  • Only the owner of a computer or its designated administrator(s) should have an administrator account or the root password.
  • Any user with an administrator account can become the root user or reset the root password.
  • A root password should be difficult to guess, containing both numbers and letters within the first eight characters.
  • A root user has the ability to access other users' files.
  • The root user has the ability to relocate or remove required system files and to introduce new files in locations that are protected from other users.

How to enable the root user

Mac OS X 10.5 or later

  1. From the Finder's Go menu, choose Utilities.
  2. Open Directory Utility.
  3. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.
  4. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
  5. Choose Enable Root User from the Edit menu.
  6. Enter the root password you wish to use in both the Password and Verify fields, then click OK.

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

  1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
  2. From the Go menu, choose Applications.
  3. Open the Utilities folder.
  4. Open the NetInfo Manager utility.
  5. Click the lock in the NetInfo Manager window.
  6. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
  7. For Mac OS X 10.2 and later, choose Enable Root User from the Security menu.
  8. For Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1, choose Security from the Domain menu, then Enable Root User from the submenu.
  9. If you have not previously set a root password, an alert box may appear that says "NetInfo Error," indicating that the password is blank. Click OK.
  10. Enter the root password you wish to use and click Set.
  11. Enter the password again for verification and click Verify.
  12. Click the lock again to prevent changes.

How to log in as root

Use these steps for Mac OS X 10.2 or later:

  1. If you are logged in, choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
  2. If you are logging in from a list of usernames with pictures, click Other.
  3. In the Name field, type: root
  4. In the Password field, type the password you defined in the steps above.

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:

  1. From the Apple menu, choose System Preferences.
  2. From the View menu, choose Login.
  3. Click the Login Window tab.
  4. Select the radio button for "Name and password entry fields."

Follow these steps to log in as root:

  1. If you are logged in, choose Log Out from the Apple menu.
  2. In the Name field, type: root
  3. In the Password field, type the password you defined in the steps above.


How to disable the root user

Mac OS X 10.5 or later

  1. Click the Finder icon in the Dock.
  2. From the Go menu, choose Utilities.
  3. Open Directory Utility.
  4. Click the lock in the Directory Utility window.
  5. Enter an administrator account name and password, then click OK.
  6. Choose Disable Root User from the Edit menu.

Mac OS X 10.4.x or earlier

  1. Open NetInfo Manager. It's in the Utilities folder.
  2. Click the lock.
  3. Enter the name and password for an administrator account, then click OK.
  4. For Mac OS X 10.2 and later, choose Disable Root User from the Security menu.
  5. For Mac OS X 10.0 and 10.1, choose Security from the Domain menu, then Disable Root User from the submenu.


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.


Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Installing Wine on Mac OS X

Part 1: Install MacPorts

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.

  1. On the MacPorts website, go to the Download and Installation page and download the appropriate "dmg" disk image for your computer.
  2. Double-click the file you downloaded, and double-click the .pkg file to run the installer. You're almost done!
  3. Open up the Terminal and copy and paste the following into it. Remember not to include the dollar sign ($) 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!

Part 2: Install Wine Using MacPorts

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.


Part 3: Install Windows Programs Using Wine

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!

Part 4: Run Windows Programs Using Wine

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!

Keeping Wine Up to Date

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.

Uninstalling Wine and MacPorts

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!





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