Requiring administrators to have a personal account for individual use and an administrative account for administrative purposes reduces the risk of the administrator inadvertently making system configuration changes while performing normal non-administrative tasks. It also allows you to access the computer in the event of a corruption of an account.
1. Open System Preferences
2. Under Systems select Accounts. (Figure 1.)
3. Enter a name for the initial administrator in the Name text box. Any name may be used for the administrator account; however, it should not be an easily guessable name, such as "Administrator."
4. Enter a short name for this administrator in the Short Name text box. This name will be used as an ID for this administrative user and it should not be an easily guessable name, such as "admin."
5. Enter the administrator's password in both the Password and Verify boxes.
6. Leave the Password Hint field blank. If a hint is provided, anyone attempting to guess the password would be presented with a hint after 3 failed attempts, giving additional information that could be used to compromise the account.
7. Click Continue.
1. Open System Preferences
2. Under Systems select Accounts. (Figure 1.)
3. Click on the Accounts icon in the System row (Figure 2).
4. Unlock the screen for changes, if necessary.
5. To create an additional user account, click on the plus (+) button below the Login Options button on the accounts screen.
6. Enter a name in the Name field and a user ID in the Short Name field. Choose a secure password and enter it into the Password and Verify fields.
7. Leave the Password Hint field blank. If a value is entered in this field, it will be given to anyone after 3 failed attempts to enter a password, making it easier to break into the account.
8. Select the Security button.
9. It is up to you to decide whether or not to allow a user to administer this computer (Figure 3) by leaving the box checked or unchecked.
10. Repeat above steps, beginning with step 5, to create additional accounts.
11. Once all accounts have been created, click the lock in the lower left corner of the screen to relock the panel.
