Trying to use the SHUTDOWN command from Terminal.What is the SU password?

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Level 1

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Trying to use the SHUTDOWN command from Terminal.What is the SU password?

Hello,

I'm trying to use the Shutdown command from a terminal window, but when I do it says "NOT super-user. So then I enter "SU shutdown" and then I'm prompted to enter the su password. I have no idea what password this would be! I've tried my user password that I use to log in with, no go. I've tried the Administrator password, which I use when I'm making system changes. None I know of seem to work.'

Ideas? Is there a set Super User password?

Thanks

Jeff

1.82 Ghz Dual Core Mac Mini, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Sep 1, 2010 6:57 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

William-Boyd-Jr

Level 6

10,578 points

Sep 1, 2010 7:04 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

Jeff Ingram wrote:
I'm trying to use the Shutdown command from a terminal window, but when I do it says "NOT super-user.

Use a shutdown command that starts like this

sudo shutdown (and other parameters)

then enter the password of the administrative account that you're using.

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Answer 2

Niel

Level 10

726,539 points

Sep 1, 2010 7:05 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

There is no su password to authenticate to root by default; anything entered, including an empty string, will be treated as incorrect. Use sudo instead.

(53583)

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Answer 3

WZZZ

Level 6

13,220 points

Sep 1, 2010 7:17 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

The su command allows you the privileges of another user. When you enter su shutdown, you are telling Terminal you want the privileges of the non-existent user "shutdown." I have to ask out of curiosity, why do you want to shutdown from Terminal?

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Answer 4

WZZZ

Level 6

13,220 points

Sep 1, 2010 7:48 PM in response to WZZZ

You can use 'sudo shutdown -h now' to shutdown the whole machine.
But it is strongly recommended not to use this method since the Unix-level commands know nothing of the higher (GUI) level system and so won't do the right thing for gracefully shutting down the GUI part of OS X.

http://hintsforums.macworld.com/showthread.php?t=51718

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Answer 5

Jeff Ingram Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 2, 2010 12:08 AM in response to William-Boyd-Jr

Thanks for the tip, but when I enter what you had suggested, "sudo shutdown", I get "ingramje is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported" ingramje is the username."

The whole reason why I'm interested in knowing how to do this is because I've been in the situation where my mouse battery would die and I wouldn't be able to shutdown/restart the system. Some reason after I've replaced the battery it still won't work until after I've restarted. I can open terminal by searching spotlight (Command + Spacebar, type terminal+enter).

Thanks for your help!

Jeff Ingram

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Answer 6

Jeff Ingram Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 2, 2010 12:29 AM in response to WZZZ

Ok I found this note and what he offers works!

02-20-2006, 06:14 PM #4
giskard22
Moderator

Join Date: May 2003
Posts: 4,254
You can modify these settings from the command line using 'pmset'. Using cron, you could make simple jobs that first use pmset to schedule the next startup, then execute a shutdown.

As hayne said, the 'shutdown' command will not give any GUI processes an opportunity to save files and whatnot. If you want a more graceful method, I believe you could use AppleScript from the command line to send an apple event instead. It would be like selecting "Shutdown" from the Apple menu:

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events"' -e 'shut down' -e 'end tell'

If any applications have unsaved work, the shutdown would halt.

So I've entered osascript -e 'tell application "System Events"' -e 'shut down' -e 'end tell' into a terminal window and pressed enter and it safely shutdown my system. Now for the next question, is there a way that I could save this to a file of some sort and just have it as an icon that I can double click to run this script?

Thanks sooo much for your help!

Jeff

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Answer 7

Sep 2, 2010 1:53 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

The whole reason why I'm interested in knowing how to do this is because I've been in the situation where my mouse battery would die and I wouldn't be able to shutdown/restart the system. Some reason after I've replaced the battery it still won't work until after I've restarted. I can open

Use control-eject.

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Answer 8

BobHarris

Level 9

52,907 points

Sep 2, 2010 6:19 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

Thanks for the tip, but when I enter what you had suggested, "sudo shutdown", I get "ingramje is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported" ingramje is the username."

Then 'ingramje' is not an administrator. You can make 'ingramje' an admin via System Preferences -> Accounts, however, if you intentionally have 'ingramje' setup so that account does not have admin rights, then the other approaches would be better.

You could also try


su whatever_account_does_have_adminrights -c "reboot"

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Answer 9

WZZZ

Level 6

13,220 points

Sep 2, 2010 8:34 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

Now for the next question, is there a way that I could save this to a file of some sort and just have it as an icon that I can double click to run this script?

Anything here?
http://macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2007/06/08/hit-and-run-launching-applescripts- with-keyboard-shortcuts.html?page=1

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Answer 10

Jeff Ingram Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 2, 2010 9:13 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

AWESOME!!! This is the best solution yet! Thanks so much! Sometime the most simple answer is the BEST!

Thanks to everyone that tried to help! Another reason why I love Apple is because of the community that follows their end users! Y'all all stick together to help one another out!

Thank you!

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Answer 11

WZZZ

Level 6

13,220 points

Sep 2, 2010 9:29 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

Yeah, I didn't understand why you didn't try that right away.

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Answer 12

BobHarris

Level 9

52,907 points

Sep 2, 2010 10:27 AM in response to Jeff Ingram

Now for the next question, is there a way that I could save this to a file of some sort and just have it as an icon that I can double click to run this script?

But I thought you wanted this because you lost the ability to use the Mouse? How do you double-click on a script if you do not have a mouse? 🙂

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Answer 13

Jeff Ingram Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 2, 2010 2:04 PM in response to WZZZ

i'm relatively new to mac computers therefore i did not know the keyboard commands. Thanks again!

Jeff

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Answer 14

Jeff Ingram Author

Level 1

6 points

Sep 2, 2010 2:06 PM in response to Jeff Ingram

Resolved

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