[Vishal]

Hi,

Sudo command allows a permitted user to execute command as another user as specified in the sudoers file. "Sudo su" lets one continuously have the superuser privelege, ie; the privelege doesn't die after one command. "Sudo su -" prevents detail of each command from being logged.

Now what does "sudo su - <username>" do. Example::"sudo su - dwhprod"

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks.

[P]

You switch to user dwhprod by supplying the root password.

You're really stringing together commands, you know. You can get to a root shell (yes, that's what you do by hitting "sudo su") by just typing "sudo -s" or (if root is enabled, which it isn't by default on OS X) just "su". You can switch to any user by typing "su username". That will request the login password for that user, however, not the root password. What you're doing is that you first authenticate as root, with sudo, and then use root to run "su username". Running su as root does not require a password, so you only get one password request (for sudo). The - just stops reading switches.

[Sijmen]

How do you get myself on the sudoers list? I installed ntfs-3g and I need to unmount and mount the drive with the sudo command.

[CatOne]

users with admin accounts are in the sudoers list. So if you log in with an admin account, just do sudo -s and then enter your password, you'll get a root shell.

If you're logged on as a non-admin user, either sudo to an admin user *first* or modify the /etc/sudoers file. Put the user's short name in there. Of course, to edit /etc/sudoers, you must be root ;-)

[Sijmen]

Originally Posted by CatOne 

users with admin accounts are in the sudoers list. So if you log in with an admin account, just do sudo -s and then enter your password, you'll get a root shell.

If you're logged on as a non-admin user, either sudo to an admin user *first* or modify the /etc/sudoers file. Put the user's short name in there. Of course, to edit /etc/sudoers, you must be root ;-)

Done that, ntfs-3g works great