Comment Admin user can sudo to root ... (Score 1) 614
On OS X admin users are not running as root but can become root when needed (via sudo or su), either at the command line or because an application requested such access.
One simple example is the Software Update app, which prompts the admin user for his password to do the update, which behind the scenes is doing a sudo to root to update the system files.
I think this is a very cool and flexible system that prevents the user from shooting himself in the foot most of the time (and prevents virii from being able to write to system areas without permission) but makes it fairly easy for the user to become root as needed.
One simple example is the Software Update app, which prompts the admin user for his password to do the update, which behind the scenes is doing a sudo to root to update the system files.
I think this is a very cool and flexible system that prevents the user from shooting himself in the foot most of the time (and prevents virii from being able to write to system areas without permission) but makes it fairly easy for the user to become root as needed.
