Comments on: All Your Mac Are Belong to Us: How to Easily Reset an OSX Password

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:23:52 +0000

hi, i tried to reset the computer with that little bit of info given on the sight, but none of that worked. Even with the correct user name. it just keeps repeating localhost:/root# Also when i type that first part in a bunch of stuff pops up and i have no idea what it is suppose to tell me. Can you help.

By: y-zarce? b yami!

y-zarce? b yami! — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:25:33 +0000

damn, sounds like jerry may be a little jealo … oh wait, it’s apple-envy.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:12:53 +0000

R031E5: The instructions I linked to clearly give the instructions for setting up a firmware password on an Intel based mac. (Under the heading “How to enable the Open Firmware Password”.)

By: Jerry

Jerry — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 12:54:18 +0000

Damn another Windows vulner… oh wait, it’s Apple. I thought they were perfect.

By: wdejong

wdejong — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 03:45:14 +0000

You can still set a firmware password on an Intel by using the Firmware Password utility found on your Restore DVD

By: R031E5

R031E5 — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 22:06:48 +0000

so how can I protect my intel based mac with a firmware passwd if it doesn’t support open firmware?

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 16:20:38 +0000

Non-issue for the reasons cited above… physical access to the machine and the machine is owned.

This is also why firmware passwords exist. If you are worried about people being able to boot into single user mode and reset passwords then at the very least you should set your firmware password.

The firmware password requires the user to type in a password before the machine will start booting off any drive. The downside to using a firmware is that it slightly complicates troubleshooting when/if things go wrong with OS X.

Instructions for setting up a firmware password are here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106482

By: xSmurf

xSmurf — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:46:06 +0000

Note that this will *not* reset your FileVault password, or master password, if you have it enabled.

Plus this is definitely a “feature”… The other day at work I decided to change my machines password. To be safe I saved it remotely on my encrypted disc image at home. But when I came back from lunch and had forgotten the password, I realized that was pretty useless since I require all ssh access to use private keys. Luckily I suffer from the “save more often than you type” syndrome and knew I could reboot the machine without losing anything. So rebooted into single user mode and less than 5mins later I was back to work. On a side note, I’m not a big fan of FileVault, I find it a little slow. But I always keep the most private stuff on an encrypted iso…

By: bop

bop — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:36:49 +0000

yeah ofcourse its a non issue…

By: chad

chad — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 15:19:31 +0000

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm