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.

Pliers

I got it working, found it here - serverfault.com/questions/43362/su-not-working-on-mac-os-x – Pliers

You might want to turn your comment into an answer, then accept it. It proved useful to me. – Extrusion

Answer 1

sudo su

will do the trick in Mac Os X terminal :)

Earthman

Answer 2

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

Mockery

-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. – Exequatur

did you mean "the root account is not enabled by default, you have to manually enable it to use it"? here: support.apple.com/kb/ht1528 – Thetic

Answer 3

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

Synaesthesia