OS X is a user-based operating system where each user that access the system has a separate account that holds preferences and other settings for the user account to run, and also allows the system to implement security by using permissions to restrict filesystem access. While by default you might think of a user account as a human user, many background services like Web servers or database servers, run under special user accounts. These might be called “www,” “http,” or similar, and you can see some of these if you open Activity Monitor. Continue reading
Tag Archives: user account
Fix double login prompts on your Mac
When booting your Mac you should only need to supply your username and password once in order to log in. However, there may be times upon cold-booting your Mac where you enter your password at the login prompt, but after the system shows a gray boot screen as expected, it displays your login window again. This problem does not affect the functionality of your Mac, and is only a minor hiccup in how FileVault disk encryption is set up on your system. Continue reading