Single-user mode made easy

Apr 06, '01 12:29:33PM

Contributed by: tomsinclair

This is a follow-up to the hint about using <Cmd>-S during boot-up to go to single-user mode.

Well, I go to single-user mode to run fsck, the UNIX disk checking tool and I noticed on my Wall Street PB that <Cmd>-s would work sometimes but not consistently.

As an old UNIX geek I was trying different, more reliable ways to get to single-user mode from the Terminal and found this one almost by accident:

1. su to root (or use sudo)
2. Run the command "shutdown now" (without the quotes, of course.)

After a bit of pondering, OS X will quietly and consistently shutdown to single-user mode. A quick 'reboot' and you're back in Aqua.

Man, I love this OS!

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