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OS X - user with most privileges?
- Thread starter komatsu
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Admins have full privileges in OS X. They have the same name (Administrator).
If you're referring to the utmost privileges to edit system files, it's called the root user, like all other UNIX systems. It's disabled by default
If you're referring to the utmost privileges to edit system files, it's called the root user, like all other UNIX systems. It's disabled by default
On Unix systems, an administrator is capable of using the program sudo, which allows them to execute a command as root. The first user account has this ability, but you can change it. There has to be at least one user account with this privilege, as you should never (and I really mean never) enable root outright.
First account at setup yes then you have option to make any user you add after that an admin during the creation of the account.
Thanks for the great responses!
So what sort of situation would merit enabling "root" access?
So what sort of situation would merit enabling "root" access?
I am guessing that such a situation does simply not exist. sudo obviates the need for this and it is preinstalled and configured on OS X. The system also has something like an authentication sub-system, which allows administrators to perform many root actions in the GUI interface, such as in System Preferences.
Using root makes more sense on Unix systems that do not have sudo preinstalled, such as FreeBSD and Arch Linux, but these systems are meant to be configured further and their manuals are quite clear that root should not be used for much longer beyond the system setup.
From a pragmatic perspective you are correct when you say the Windows Administrator account has the most privileges. However this is not quite true. The Windows user with the most privileges is technically System.