kmosx: I lost my admin user (Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier)

I lost my admin user (Mac OS X 10.4 and earlier)

If you are unfortunate enough to delete your only admin user, or remove his admin capability, then as long as you have another user with login capability, you can give that user admin rights as shown below. You can then re-create the original user or reinstate the admin capability using NetInfo Manager.

Print this post out in a mono-spaced font, and type carefully, paying attention to spaces and punctuation, since you cannot copy/paste in Single User mode.

Caution: in single user mode you have root privileges. Be careful! Substitute the name of 'youruser' below.

Boot into single user mode (Command-S) at startup which will eventually get you a shell prompt (ending in #). Then type the following:

fsck -fy

Repeat the above until it says your disk is OK. Then continue with

mount -uw /
nicl -raw /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb -merge /groups/admin users youruser

If you get a message saying "invalid path", then type these two commands first:

nicl -raw /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb -create /groups/admin gid 80
nicl -raw /var/db/netinfo/local.nidb -create /groups/admin passwd '*'

and then repeat the "nicl ... -merge" command. Then:

reboot

You will now be able to login as 'youruser' and have administrative privileges.

Membership of the 'admin' group is the only thing that distinguishes administrative users from ordinary users.