OSX su command issue

Question

So I cant get su command to work on a terminal. All I do is type "su" and press enter, it asks for the password and I enter my currently logged in user password. It always gives this error. I swear this used to work earlier, not sure what happened.

su: Sorry

I am running a Mac OSX 10.7.1 (Lion). Anyone know what could be wrong? I am entering the right password.

I got it working, found it here - http://serverfault.com/questions/43362/su-not-working-on-mac-os-x — kapso, Sep 27 '11 at 06:43
You might want to turn [your comment](http://serverfault.com/q/43362/58481) into an answer, then accept it. _It proved useful to me._ — Marius Butuc, Jun 28 '12 at 15:49

score 87 · Answer 1 · answered May 22 '13 at 14:16

87

sudo su

will do the trick in Mac Os X terminal :)

answered May 22 '13 at 14:16

Nehemias Herrera

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score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 27 '12 at 10:26

11

There is no root account on mac osx. Just go sudo bash then type the command or commands you want as root.

edited Jun 27 '12 at 10:26

Thiem Nguyen

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answered Jun 27 '12 at 08:44

jacklol

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-1. Of course there is a root account. "root" is shown as a file owner in many places. See Nehemias Herrera's correct answer below. – noogrub Aug 14 '13 at 12:37
did you mean "the root account is not enabled by default, you have to manually enable it to use it"? here: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1528 – Félix Adriyel Gagnon-Grenier Feb 20 '14 at 14:56

schluchc · Answer 3 · 2012-06-27T11:18:33.353

If sudo stops working because permission to read sudoers is missing, this solution from kahisv.com solves the problem:

Check if the permissions are still correct, that's how it should be:

$ ls -lad / /private /private/etc
d--xrwxr-t+  36 root  wheel  1292 25 sty 12:34 /

If this is wrong in your case, boot in Single-User Mode (hold cmd+s while booting) and enter theese commands:

# /sbin/fsck -fy
# /sbin/mount -wu /
# /bin/chmod 1775 /
# /bin/sync
# exit

OSX su command issue

3 Answers3