[iBook] Second Hand Mac woes

Larry Kollar kollar at alltel.net
Fri Jan 14 19:42:06 PST 2005


Alex Santos 100MB Neostrada Mail wrote:

> I had an idea, if I startup with apple S, can I use a unix command to 
> create a new user and login the newly created user from the login 
> window?

Yes. You might also be able to see what accounts are set up on the 
computer & change those passwords.

In single-user mode, type:

	nidump passwd .

If NetInfo is working, it will list all the accounts configured. There 
are a bunch of accounts created by the system for the system, but they 
all look like this:

	larry:xyreRxk:501:20::0:0:Larry Kollar:/Users/larry:/bin/tcsh

(I replaced the encrypted password with my own gibberish for this 
example.)

That first number in the string of four, the UID, is the one you're 
interested in. Any account with a UID over 500 is a user account. 
Pretend for a moment it's my computer you bought:

	# passwd larry
	Changing password for larry.
	New password:

Type anything you want for a new password, then type it again when the 
Mac prompts you for it.

Now that you've fixed it, press Ctrl-D to exit single-user mode, then 
log in with the user name and changed password. Presto, you are in OSX. 
Chances are, that account is an "admin" account, so you can create your 
own account using the normal System Preferences dialogs.
--
Larry Kollar    k  o  l  l  a  r  @  a  l  l  t  e  l  .  n  e  t
"The hardest part of all this is the part that requires thinking."
-- Paul Tyson, on xml-doc 



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