Open a Root Finder Window in Snow Leopard

This is a Snow Leopard update to an existing post about the same topic. Yes, you can still open a root Finder window in Snow Leopard, but there is an extra step required.

First, run the following command in Terminal and then enter your password:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

Next, click on an empty spot on your desktop — not in an existing Finder window. Now, type Command-N or select New Finder Window from the File menu. A new Finder window resembling the following should open:

You can see that it opens up to the root user’s home. Use this window to navigate anywhere you like and make the changes you need. Keep in mind that you can do just as much damage with this as you can in the Terminal as root.

To end your root Finder session, go back to the Terminal window and hit ^C.

Quirks to be Mindful of

• You won’t be able to interact with any files you might have on your desktop, as those belong to your logged-in user account and root’s desktop is currently (and transparently) sitting on top of it.
• If you take any screenshots, they will be owned by the logged-in user and you’ll need to navigate to them via your root Finder window.
• If you attempt to open/double-click a file which requires root access to read, the corresponding application will open as the logged-in user and the file will fail to open. To get around this, you can launch the app’s /Contents/MacOS executable as root and open the file from within the app.

Can I boot Snow Leopard in 64-bit mode?

UPDATE: Please read Update 2 at the bottom of this post before using a 64-bit kernel as your default.

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With Snow Leopard making its appearance this Friday, August 28, 2009, some people may be wondering whether they’ll be able to boot their Macs in 64-bit mode. Only Intel Xserves will boot this way by default. If you want to boot your desktop or mobile Mac in 64-bit mode, you’ll need to take some additional steps. The first is checking to see if your Mac has a 64-bit-capable EFI. If the output of the following command is EFI64, you’re good. If not, you’re out of luck.

    ioreg -l -p IODeviceTree | awk -F'"' '/firmware-abi/{print $4}'

Once you’ve verified it’s possible, you have a couple options for making your Mac boot into 64-bit mode. I’d try them in this order. First, to affect the current boot only, hold down the ’6′ and ’4′ keys during bootup. Once you’ve verified it works and are comfortable with it, you can make the change permanent by adding an ‘arch=x86_64′ boot flag to your com.apple.Boot.plist, like so:

    sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot \
    'Kernel Flags' 'arch=x86_64'

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UPDATE 1 (8/28/09): Apple has a couple new (and one older) knowledge-base articles pertaining to this topic.

1. Mac OS X Server v10.6: Macs that use the 64-bit kernel
2. Mac OS X Server v10.6: Starting up with the 32-bit or 64-bit kernel
3. How to tell if your Intel-based Mac has a 32-bit or 64-bit processor

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UPDATE 2 (8/29/09): This post has received quite a few hits, so I now feel the need to include some educational material about why Apple chose to make Snow Leopard boot with a 32-bit kernel by default.

The primary reason is for compatibility with third-party software, particularly software that requires kernel extensions. Probably the most widely know examples of software that depends upon kernel extensions, or kexts, are VMware Fusion and Parallels. If you use these to run Windows or Linux on your Mac, you’ll want to keep using a 32-bit kernel. Virtualization software needs direct access to the hardware normally controlled by the kernel (CPU, RAM, Disk) in order to “fool” operating systems into thinking they’re installed on “real” computers. The kernel extensions allow them to do this.

Kexts must be written specifically for 32-bit or 64-bit kernels. They are not interchangeable. Applications, on the other hand, can run at 64-bit even if the kernel is 32-bit. As far as your 64-bit CPU is concerned, the kernel is just another application. It’s a very important application — in the sense that it is code that is executed on a processor — whose job it is to arbitrate demands on the system’s resources. Most applications don’t have direct access to the CPU, RAM, or other physical devices, but make requests of the kernel instead.

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UPDATE 3 (9/1/09): John Siracusa’s new article on Snow Leopard was posted today. Then entire thing is great reading, but I’m linking to the section that addresses 64-bit vs 32-bit here.

Open a Finder Window with Root Access

UPDATE (9/28/09): Got Snow Leopard? Please see this post for updated instructions.

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It’s occasionally handy when troubleshooting a problem in OS X to have root access in the Finder without having to log out of your current session. Sure, you can do most things in the Terminal, but the GUI can be much handier for certain tasks. This is a quick-and-dirty Terminal trick to open a Finder window with root access.

Run the following command and then enter your password:

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/MacOS/Finder

A new Finder window resembling the following should open:

You can see that it opens up to the root user’s home. Use this window to navigate anywhere you like and make the changes you need. Keep in mind that you can do just as much damage with this as you can in the Terminal as root.

To end your root Finder session, go back to the Terminal window and hit ^C.

Quirks to be Mindful Of

• You won’t be able to interact with any files you might have on your desktop, as those belong to your logged-in user account and root’s desktop is currently (and transparently) sitting on top of it.
• If you take any screenshots, they will be owned by the logged-in user and you’ll need to navigate to them via your root Finder window.
• If you attempt to open/double-click a file which requires root access to read, the corresponding application will open as the logged-in user and the file will fail to open. To get around this, you can launch the app’s /Contents/MacOS executable as root and open the file from within the app.