Mac Hacks (4 page)

A
standard user on OS X has plenty of control over their
information and preferences. Preferences for each user are stored in
each user’s Home folder’s Library. The Library is what makes your Mac
feel like it’s yours. You might want to directly tweak the files in your
Library, but if you go poking around in your Home folder, you won’t see
anything that looks like it might be storing your preferences and the
like. That’s because those things are stored in the Library folder and,
starting in OS X Lion, Apple made that folder invisible.

This can be frustrating for longtime Mac users who are used to
messing around in that folder. For example, an app is giving you a ton
of problems, you might want to jump to the Library folder and delete
your preferences for that program, which can sometimes make the app more
responsive (the preferences will be regenerated).

Fortunately, Apple gives you a simple way to access your Library
folder. In the Finder’s menu bar, open the Go menu and then press the
Option key. Voilà—a Library option appears in the menu (
Figure 1-8
)!

Fire
up System Preferences and head to Users & Groups.
You’ll see a list of users on the left side of the pane with the current
user at the very top. Immediately under each user’s name is a label that
indicates what kind of user they are (
Figure 1-9
).

Figure 1-9. You can do a lot more with this pane than just add users. Click
the Login Items tab if you want programs to start automatically when
you log in.

If you only have one administrator account, you can’t really
change your account status because your Mac has to have at least one
admin-level user. In that case, the first step is to add another
administrator user. Click the lock icon in the pane’s lower-left corner
and then type in your administrator password in the window that appears.
Once the pane is unlocked, you can add a new account. Click the + button
above the lock icon and a new window will appear (
Figure 1-10
).

Fill
out the fields and pick a good password (click the key
icon if you want Password Assistant to help you pick a secure one);
write yourself a meaningful hint and click Create User. You now have
two
administrator accounts. Now you’re ready to
make your original admin account into a standard account: click your
original account in the list on the right side of the preference pane,
and then uncheck the box that says “Allow user to administer this
computer” (
Figure 1-11
).
That’s it—you’ve turned your overly powerful administrator account into
a safe-to-use-daily standard account! (Well, after you restart your
machine, anyway.) In
Figure 1-11
, a former
administrator account has become a standard account.

You might be experiencing some regret at this point. What about
all the power you gave up? How will you get things done when you need to
be an administrator to accomplish something? Will you have to log out
and log back in? Don’t fret: everything will be almost exactly the same.
You’ll still have all the same powers, you’ll just have to occasionally
enter the admin username and password you just created instead of the
password associated with your now-standard account—a small price to pay
for increased
security.

Figure 1-10. Adding a new Administrator to your Mac. This one won’t be for
day-to-day use; instead, you’ll use it on those special occasions when
you want to boss your computer around for a bit.

Figure 1-11. Behold your new standard user account. Finally, everyone can
sleep soundly at night.

Now
you know the safe way to do things when it comes to user
accounts, but that method might not be to your liking. You might be one
of those folks who wants to control
everything
—you’re so certain of your abilities that
you don’t want to stumble along using a standard account to safeguard
other users’ data or the integrity of your machine. If you’re one of
those people, the root account may be for you.

You’ve been warned, but if you want to go ahead and enable the
root account anyway, the process is simple. Open the Users & Groups
preference pane, click the lock icon and enter your admin credentials,
and then click Login Options. In the pane’s list of settings, click the
Join button. Doing so will display a pane where you can enter a server
for your Mac to look at. You don’t need to worry about which server to
choose. Just click the Open Directory Utility button and marvel at the
Directory Utility window (
Figure 1-12
).

Figure 1-12. Active Directory, LDAPv3, NIS—is this some sort of repository
for bad acronyms? Nope. Even though this window might not make any
sense at all in light of what you’re trying to do, this is exactly
where you want to be.

You are about to become the supreme overlord of your Mac. First,
unlock the pane by clicking the lock icon and authenticating. Next, head
to the top of your screen, click Edit, and then select Enable Root User,
You’ll see some fields you can use to create a password for the newly
enabled root user. Enter the password and bang—you’ve got a root user
for your Mac!

To log in as the root user, log out or switch users. You’ll see an
option on the Login screen named Others. Choose this option and then
type in
root
for the login name
and the password you created for that account.

Once you’re logged in as the root user, you can do anything you
want. You can look at any file on your machine (even other people’s)
delete any directory, delete any file, or completely ruin the system on
a whim. Logging in as root isn’t
necessarily
dangerous if you’re very careful with what you do while you’re logged
in, but a moment’s lapse of attention and you can do serious
damage.