Not able to use sudo commands in terminal

[nbarer]

Boot to safe mode and do this:

chown root:wheel /etc/sudoers

i did this and it said:

chown: /etc/sudoers: No such file or directory

Any idea what it could be?

 

[gsahli]

You haven't said what you're trying to fix. (Tagging onto an old topic isn't normally the way to get good help).
Did you try sudo visudo ?
(you know, it's good that your OS doesn't allow a normal user - non-admin - to change /etc/sudoers)

 

[nbarer]

You haven't said what you're trying to fix. (Tagging onto an old topic isn't normally the way to get good help).
Did you try sudo visudo ?
(you know, it's good that your OS doesn't allow a normal user - non-admin - to change /etc/sudoers)

Woops sorry!

Yess I tried to follow a few steps in this thread until it became clear that my problem was different.

Truth be told, I was trying to get some cracked software to work with a sudo command and must have made a careless mistake...

Now whenever I try a sudo command, I get the following response:

sudo: /etc/sudoers is world writable
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

And a bunch of my software has started to act up. I was going to try to reload the operating system, but would love to know a better solution if one exists

Thanks for your patience,

Noah

 

[dsemf]

Woops sorry!

Yess I tried to follow a few steps in this thread until it became clear that my problem was different.

Truth be told, I was trying to get some cracked software to work with a sudo command and must have made a careless mistake...

Now whenever I try a sudo command, I get the following response:

sudo: /etc/sudoers is world writable
sudo: no valid sudoers sources found, quitting
sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin

And a bunch of my software has started to act up. I was going to try to reload the operating system, but would love to know a better solution if one exists

Thanks for your patience,

Noah

You are probably in a catch-22 situation.

The valid permissions for /etc/sudoers is:

-r--r-----  1 root  wheel  1563 Feb 12  2018 sudoers

Once the file is world writable, you cannot change it back because it is now invalid.

Reloading the OS might work. Another idea is to boot from an external bootable drive such as a CCC clone that has a valid /etc/sudoers file. You might be able to mount the normal drive and fix it that way.

Good luck.

DS

 

[nbarer]

I am making a Time Machine Backup of my entire computer. I was hoping to wipe my everything and reformat - reinstall OSX 10.14 and then try to load back my apps and data using the time machine?

Is that possible or am I doomed to failure?

If reloading my apps from my current messed up time machine backup isn't going to work, I thought I would install everything again with that fresh OS, one at a time...

What do you mean by "Reloading the OS might work." Do you mean that there's some way that I may have messed up my computer more permanently such that a reformatting and reinstallation of the OS wouldn't fix?

Thanks in advance,

Noah

 

[dsemf]

I am making a Time Machine Backup of my entire computer. I was hoping to wipe my everything and reformat - reinstall OSX 10.14 and then try to load back my apps and data using the time machine?

Is that possible or am I doomed to failure?

If reloading my apps from my current messed up time machine backup isn't going to work, I thought I would install everything again with that fresh OS, one at a time...

What do you mean by "Reloading the OS might work." Do you mean that there's some way that I may have messed up my computer more permanently such that a reformatting and reinstallation of the OS wouldn't fix?

Thanks in advance,

Noah

Reformatting and reinstalling should work fine. The fresh install will create a valid /etc/sudoers file. I am not sure if just a reinstall would fix the file.

DS

 

[nbarer]

Got it - Would there be any sense and possibility in reformatting and reinstalling only to get the sudoers file and then re-inserting it back into my working set up?

 

[dsemf]

Got it - Would there be any sense and possibility in reformatting and reinstalling only to get the sudoers file and then re-inserting it back into my working set up?

The real problem is probably not the file itself, just its permissions. I am assuming that you or some program or script did not actually edit the file, but did change the permissions.

Since the file is writable by anyone, the sudo command does not trust it and therefore will not run.

My theory is that by booting from an external bootable backup, it might be possible to mount the internal disk and change the permissions on sudoers on the internal disk since you will have a valid sudoers file on the external booted system. That assumes the backup has a good sudoers file. Another approach is a clean install to an external disk. It might even be possible using the recovery system. None of these ideas have been tested.

DS