sudo password issue

Thanks for that quick response John.

I first opened Directory Utility and "Enabled Root User", assigned it a purely numeric password, then ran "sudo su" command from a standard (non-admin) user as instructed. It prompted for a password, but when I provide it, it says "Sorry, try again". Then I switched to my admin user and tried again, but with same results.

Strangely, I can switch from standard to admin user and vice-versa from a terminal window without any issues by doing the following -

su - <shortusername>

Then at the password prompt, I enter the appropriate password and am able to get into that user account. So it appears that sudo is the problem.

In the meantime, I found a way to get root access from the terminal (my iMac has 2 configured users: 1 standard and 1 admin) -

a. first enable root access from Directory Utility -> Edit

b. Switch to Login Window (you will see an option to Login using root - or any user really)

c. Use that option to logon as root

d. Once you are in, you can open a Terminal window.

I am planning to use this as a last option to execute that DBD's make install, if no other cleaner way exists. My worry being, if it installs as root and I have to run my perl scripts from a standard user account, whether I will have permission problems at runtime. Plus, I don't know if the scripts also come with a clean uninstall.

To answer your other question -

- I did install the latest version of Xcode after the Yosemite update, so I am guessing the command line utilities are installed. I also think if they weren't, I would have run into issues with DBD::mysql install in prior steps itself (involving other makefiles).

Anyone else reading this about DBD::mysql driver install problems on Yosemite, please let me know if you have had success with it. I have seen suggestions stating that one should install fink or use MacPorts, but after cursory reading of their installation procedures, it appears that setup will run its own makefiles. So I'd like to avoid those installs if I can. Even if I did, this driver install is the only reason I'd use it for, really.

Cheers.

Ok, I did what I said I didn't want to do, but it looks like my DBD::mysql problem is now solved.

I enabled root user as posted earlier, went in through the Login Window to logon as root and executed the final "make install" command as root (from the appropriate directory) and it worked!

Well, the DBD::mysql driver installation worked.

Then I disabled root user, went back in as a standard user and executed my perl scripts which use DBD::mysql to access my database - and everything works like a charm.

sudo password issue still remains though. Perhaps, if Apple is reading this, they should quickly provide a fix to what is clearly a bug in Yosemite!

I hope this post helps.

Cheers.

If it only affects me, that worries me even more. At least for now, I knew of one other post that came up on search for sudo password issues, but I can't seem to find that link anymore.

I also saw a few posts on issues with Terminal accepting hidden passwords. It seemed to suggest that sudo was not the issue, but the terminal window itself. It said that Terminal was capitalising the first letter of all words, and since it's masked, you can't see it. A reason why, I kept trying different passwords in my travails earlier.

FYI - I now think even "su" is inconsistent. Earlier in my post, I stated that "su - <user>" was not a problem to switch from standard to admin and vice-versa. But when I tried "su - root", it wouldn't accept terminal password.

Cheers.

Thank you for that clarification on "su - root".

I usually keep my iMac as lean and clean as possible by installing just what I need, so I think I can safely rule out any third party software install on the system is causing the problem.

For now, I have gotten around my original DBD::mysql manual install issue. And for any configuration changes, the popup window currently accepts my admin user and password, so I can continue using my iMac without any interruptions.

I can wait until the next release of Yosemite to see if that fixes the issue. Still can't figure out why it happens only with me though!

Cheers.