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jerome
Asked: 2011-09-29 18:22:31 +0800 CST

sudo: must be setuid root (Mac OS X)

  • 772

I ran 

$ sudo chown -R $USER /usr/bin

and now when I try to run programs under the /usr/bin path as sudo I get 

sudo:must be setuid root

What should I do if I would like to revert the chown?

mac-osx sudo setuid

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Run Disk Utility, select your boot volume, and use "Repair Permissions". Since the files in /usr/bin (including sudo) were installed as part of the OS, it knows what their ownership and permissions should be, and it'll set them back properly.

    • 13 
  2. xattr /usr/bin
com.apple.FinderInfo
com.apple.rootless

xattr -d <extended_attribute> /usr/bin

    that will remove the attribute, so you can do the commands, then make sure you re-enable the attribute when you are finished:

    xattr -w <extended_attribute> /usr/bin

    that will re-enable the attribute.

    Ozz

    • 1

  3. You need to chown the files back to root and then chmod u+x all the programs that should be setuid root.

    • 0

  4. I'm not familiar with OSX but in Linux, you can do it by running su - to login as root and chown -R root /usr/bin.

    • 0