Terminal: change to admin user

Question

Right now I am logged in to Terminal as a standard user, is there a way to sudo as the admin user?

mja · Answer 1 · 2011-07-18 19:43:30Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

Write sudo bash, or sudo to whatever shell you want to use.

(I know this shouldn't be an answer, but I have to low rank to comment and the questioner seem to be in a hurry.)

answered Jul 18 '11 at 19:43

mja
261

	Seems to work...I used su 'User Name' and entered the password, that seems to work too. – nicole Jul 18 '11 at 19:44
	I haven't used OS X since Mac OS 1.3. I thought the use of `su` was blocked (other then with `sudo su`). Guess I remember wrong. – mja Jul 19 '11 at 14:46
	Also, using `su` is a bad habit, `sudo` and `sudoedit`prevents you from a lot of mistakes (I know, I've done most of them), especially when you have many terminal-windows open as different users and if you happen to do something in the wrong window. – mja Jul 19 '11 at 15:04
	If I remember correctly, you're not allowed to su to root but you can su to any other user. – Daniel Jul 20 '11 at 3:25
	you cannot use sudo as a standard user in os x. what he was asking is if you can become the admin user while logged in as a standard user, to which the answer is su. nothing is wrong with using su. whats wrong is su-ing to root and carelessly executing commands from a root shell. – peelman Jul 20 '11 at 4:19

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Jul 20 '11 at 3:07