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Create a 'hidden at login' Admin account
Authored by: HelloThisIsAdam on Jun 06, '07 05:12:17AM

It's been my experience that any account created with the short name 'Admin' (upper case "A") is the root account. Call it what you want in the long name, but it IS root and acts as such. So while 10.4 will allow you to create such an account in the Accounts System Prefs panel, it is smart enough to keep that account off of the login screen. 10.3 would allow that account to be displayed on the login screen. I upgraded a machine for someone from 10.3 to 10.4 and his default login account vanished from the list. The long name had nothing to do with the word "Administrator" but it's short name was "Admin". I had to re-create his envrionment for him under a new login name and deactivate root. A short name of "admin" (lower case "a") does not link to the root account.

So, if you want a hidden, all-powerful account, use "Admin" for the short name. If you don't trust your user with that much power, then stay away from it....



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Create a 'hidden at login' Admin account
Authored by: mantrid on Jun 06, '07 08:21:31AM

Any member of the admin group can perform root functions, usually by entering their password, but that isn't quite the same as being root.

Apart from not appearing in the login window, I haven't noticed anything in 10.4 to set apart the user with the name "Admin" from any other admin user, and removing "Admin" from the admin group even demotes it to a standard account. With what sort of activities are you seeing "Admin" behaving as root, as a function of the name?



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Create a 'hidden at login' Admin account
Authored by: HelloThisIsAdam on Jun 08, '07 07:18:34AM

Well, it's been a while since I encountered a machine set up this way, but the fact that a number of functions that would normally need an administrator's name and password entered (i.e., installs of some programs, certain System Prefs changes) just happen with no password request, and the fact that I could view and change the contents of all the Users folders on that machine lead me to think that I'm functioning as root. It's like a GUI version of sudo on everything I try to do...

I'll try and verify this. I work in a school system and should encounter at least one Mac with this account setup over the summer break...



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