I have admin privileges but for a strange reason I cannot run any program unless I sudo every time. Any ideas how can I fix this? is there a file with permissions that I can reset or something? I have not been able to find a solution. I tried from 2 different accounts that have admin privilege and nothing works. The issue is not using sudo to launch processes, the issue is that output is "root protected" and therefore this is messing up my pipelines to move data around, etc.
Thanks
Being the admin doesn't give you root privileges. Admin privileges allow administration users wide latitude to do stuff to the system, but, there are some things that still require super-user (root) privileges. Which is why su and sudo exist to provide root privileges for a limited scope. If you are using sudo to run software, the output will have root ownership (e.g., creating a file while running a program under sudo creates the file as owned by root with a group of admin).
What programs are you trying to run? Are you trying to run these programs in directories that have root ownership? Are you trying to access root-owned files?
Maybe my explanation was not clear and thanks for correcting me. I am an academic who uses software developed by other academics, including myself. Most of this software is either C++ programs we write and compile or python/perl scripts to link workflows. I own the computer I am having issues with, and I install all the software and make it available to all users (the programs are then in the $PATH for all users). Currently, there is only one other user, who also has admin privileges. Until a few weeks ago, I could just login as the original owner/admin (the user I created when I bought and set up the computer for the first time), open Terminal, and just type the name of the programs becuase they are on my $PATH (yes, I already checked my .bash_profile file and the $PATH is fine. If you are interested, I installed a couple of programs through conda, and conda added the approproiate line for the $PATH: export PATH="/anaconda/bin:$PATH") Yet, when I type any program that used to work right away, it does not work now. For example, "ipyard" does not work anymore. If I type "ipyrad" I get a bunch of errors (about Libraries missing, etc, which does not make sense because all the libraries are in place, I installed them as the ownwer/admin of the computer). If instead I type "sudo ipyrad" everything works as usual. The outfiles created now are root-owned only so I again have issues accessing those files, so I need to chmod them etc. I did not have to do this at all before.
I think the issue I am having is the result of me having to create a secondary admin after I had the following issue https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8273521 After chatting with Apple support, I created a new admin as if I was starting my computer from scratch, I logged in, removed the problematic files, logged back in as the original owner/admin, removed the newly created admin and everything went back to normal. Or so I thought. Now it seems I lost all privileges to really be the admin of my computer.
I think there must be a .plist file or something somewhere that I need to reset (or point to my user), but I have not been able to figure it out. And after 2 hours chatting with apple support they could not either...
