What happened to my administrator rights?

[germanix]

I was trying to change a file entry in the system files. After making the changes I clicked on "save" and was then told that I do not have the permission to write to this file. I checked the "get info" to this file and saw I can only read this file. I am however the administrator so why can I not make changes?
This is what I was trying to do:
Getting rid of Tynt in OSX

Mac OS/X
In Finder, from the Go menu, choose "Go to folder."
In the "Go to the folder" dialog, type "/etc/".
From the /etc/ folder window, open the "hosts" file in a text editor.
Add the following to the hosts file in its own line, using the site that applies to you:

127.0.0.1 tcr.tynt.com
Save and quit.

At this point I was told that my changes could not be saved as I have no rights.
In System Accounts I am set as the administrator. I am on automatic Login. I was asked for my password in order to save my settings in the text editor which I entered but was then again told that I do not have the permission. The "get info" on the host file shows me as read only. How can I change this?

 

[miles01110]

Click the lock icon and add yourself with Read and Write permissions.

 

[germanix]

I did what you suggested and tried it again but it just says that the file could not be saved. (this time not mentioning that I do not have the permission)

 

[GGJstudios]

1. Save your changed hosts file to a new text file called temphosts.txt on your Desktop.
2. Close the hosts file.
3. Open the temphosts.txt file and Command+A to copy all
4. Re-open the hosts file (now that the permissions have been changed)
5. Command+A to select all
6. Command+V to paste the data from the temphosts file
7. Save the hosts file, entering your admin password if asked.

 

[germanix]

Thank you very much. This seems to have done it. have a nice day.

 

[Hal Itosis]

Look into a GUI app called TextWrangler, which makes a lot of stuff like that much easier. (e.g., opening files in hidden directories, authorizing to overwrite root-owned files inside root-owned folders, and even auto-saving a time- stamped backup, in case we make an editing error).

As far as your "Administrator rights" go: yes you are an admin. But, you're not the system itself (root). However —as an admin —you can get root access (usually time-constrained) when authorized via password. (i.e., your regular login password).


Edit: note that handling all the stuff in post #1 is normally done by modifying such files from within Terminal.app (using a command line editor such as nano, and getting authorization via sudo).