Disk Inventory X

Guest

I tried using the sudo command as suggested, but am still unable to get results for directories in other users' homes. Did I misunderstand that the sudo open should allow for this to happen? I was running DIX as an admin on a 10.3.8 server to check the sizes of networked home directories.

Any help would be appreciated. I am excited about this tool because in the past we have had problems with users and quotas but DIX will allow the server admins to quickly find the problems.

Tjark Derlien

Did you get Disk Inventory X to launch with "sudo"? I had some problems with non-admin users.
But if DIX is launched by Pseudo, every directory should be viewable.
It might be a good idea to test this first as root (this user may be activated first with the "NetInfo Manager" - at least on the desktop version of Mac OS X).

Please let me know if this works!

Cheers,
Tjark

Todd · Guest

Tjark,

Thanks for the link to Pseudo. Using it to launch DIX, all directories were visible. I don't understand why sudo open isn't working. When I sudo open and then ps -aux I see the process is still running as myself (an admin user) but when I use Pseudo the process is being run as root. I am using the same account and password in both situations.

I would like to give a gui solution to the schools I work with that is as low cost as possible. I was hoping to use a clickable applescript to prompt authentication and then launch DIX but don't know enough about the difference between using sudo and Pseudo and why sudo isn't working as expected.

I did notice that in terminal, if I sudo first and then try open it doesn't make any difference.

Any advice would be appreciated,
Todd

Tjark Derlien

I had the same problems as you described.

I will try to dig into the problem and write a post about what I have found out (but unfortunately, I'm not a unix guru - yet..) .

By the way, I'm working on a solution within Disk Inventory X for this kind of problem, but that will take a while - so please don't hold your breath for this feature Wink

For the time being you may create a "Pseudo Launch document" for Disk Inventory X so you can start it sudo'ed with a double click in the Finder.

- Tjark

Tjark Derlien

There seems to be no easy way to start GUI based applications (Carbon/Cocoa) as root. "Pseudo" must be doing some freaky unix stuff to accomplish this.
So there remain two choices: Either launch Disk Inventory X with "Pseudo" or login as user "root" and start it normally (as I mentioned, you may have to activate the root account in NetInfo Manager).

Guest

To start an application as root, just type "sudo /Applications/appname.app/Contents/MacOS/appname" (Without quotes, of course). No need to download another program.
As far as I can tell, open tells the processes on your account to act as though you had double-clicked on it in the Finder. Because the shell isn't running the program itself, sudo won't have any effect.
For the same reason that sudo will work, the application will be a child process of the Terminal process, so if you quit Terminal or close the window, the application will quit. If you want to quit Terminal while you're using the application, type "sudo /Applications/appname.app/Contents/MacOS/appname & disown".

jordan314

I tried "sudo open Disk\ Inventory\ X.app" as well as "su" and then "open Disk\ Inventory\ X.app" and neither showed other users' accounts.
However, Pseudo worked perfectly, though initially it took a couple tries to actually launch.
This is a great app, and even more useful as root thanks!!