Product

• Brisque^® 5
• Brisque 4.x
• Brisque Serve 4
• Timna^™ 3

Platform

All Brisque platforms

Operating system

• IBM^® AIX^® 4.2.1, 4.3.3, 5.2
• Mac OS^® X

This document describes the root user in Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, and how you can enable the root user login in Mac OS X. Root user login is disabled by default.

Important notes:

• If you are unfamiliar with the term root user, you should read this entire document before using the root user. You must have an Administrator user name and password to complete these procedures.
• If you are using Mac OS X Server, root user is already enabled by default. The procedure for disabling root user (if you do not need it often), does not apply to Mac OS X Server, because the root user should always be enabled.

This document contains the following sections:

• I. Enabling the root user
• II. Logging in as root
• III. Disabling the root user
• IV. About the root user
• V. About the root directory

I. Enabling the root user

1. In the Dock, click the Finder icon.
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 the name and password of an Admin user, and then click OK.
7. For Mac OS X v10.2, choose Security > Enable Root User.
   For Mac OS X v10.0 and v10.1, choose Domain > Security > Enable Root User.
   Note: If you previously set a root password, the Alert dialog box NetInfo Error may appear, which indicates that the password is blank. If the Alert dialog box appears, click OK.
8. Enter the root password and click Set.
9. Enter the password again for verification and click Verify.
   The root user is now enabled.
   
10. Click the lock to prevent changes.
    

II. Logging in as root

In Mac OS X v10.2

1. If you are logged in to Mac OS X, choose and then log out.
   If you are logging in from a list of user names that include pictures, click Other.
   
2. In the Name box, type root.
3. In the Password box, type the password that you defined in the previous procedure.

In Mac OS X v10.0 to v10.1.5

After you enable the root user, log out from Mac OS X and log back in as the root user.
In the latest versions of Mac OS X, by default, you can choose your user name in a list of user names. In previous versions of Mac OS X, you had to type your user name in the user name box.
To select between these two methods of login, open System Preferences > Login.

The root user does not appear in the user name list, so you will need to type root in the User Name box.

To enable Mac OS X to display the user name and password boxes at login:

1. Choose > System Preferences.
2. Choose View > Login.
3. Click the Login Window tab.
4. Select Name and password entry fields.

To log in as root:

1. If you are logged into Mac OS X, log out.
2. In the Name box, type root.
3. In the Password box, type the password that you defined in the Enabling root user procedure.

III. Disabling the root user

1. From the Utilities folder, open the NetInfo Manager.
2. Click the lock.
3. Enter the Admin user name and password and click OK.
4. In Mac OS X v10.2, choose Security > Disable Root User.
   In Mac OS X v10.0/v10.1, choose Domain > Security > Disable Root User.

IV. About the root user

The root user is a special user in UNIX operating systems that has read and write privileges in the entire file system.

Use the root user account only for specific administration or monitoring tasks. After you complete a task as the root user, log out of Mac OS X and log back in using a standard or Admin user account. Disable the root if you do not use it often.

Warnings:

• Only the owner of the computer or its designated administrator should have Admin user status or the root password.
• Any Admin user can be the root user or can reset the root password.
• The root password should be defined so that it is difficult to guess; it should contain both numbers and letters within the first eight characters (if the password is longer, it is not important what the other characters are).
• A root user can read files that other users own.
• The root user can relocate or remove required system files and introduce new files in locations that are protected from other users.

V. About the root directory?

When reading technical documents, it is important to understand that the term root is used in two distinct ways: root user and root directory.

Root directory is the highest directory level of a disk. The files and folders that you see when you double-click the hard disk icon are the contents of the disk root directory.

Any user short name is also the name of the user's Home directory. The root user shares its name with its own Home directory, which is the highest level of the disk directory (a root directory in this case).

The Finder and the Terminal show different contents of the root directory. Some root directory items are not visible in the Finder. This reduces visual clutter. Users familiar with the UNIX command line can use the Terminal utility to view the entire contents of a directory.

Notes:

• A directory is represented graphically as a folder. The terms Home folder and Home directory are generally interchangeable.
• The root user does not appear in the Users pane of the System Preferences dialog box.

Technical contact(s)

Lev Weissman

Submitted by

Frank Conrad

Date submitted

02 Jun 2003