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Running a MacBook Pro 2016, MacOS Monterey v 12.7.6.

I need to add a username with admin privileges to allow that user to run a specific program, VeraCrypt, as explained here. In summary, one adds this line to the sudoers user section:

your-non-admin-username ALL = (ALL) /Applications/VeraCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/VeraCrypt

The username has a space in it, like (not the real username) "Clark K". I tried entering this:


Clark K ALL = (ALL) /Applications/VeraCrypt.app/Contents/MacOS/VeraCrypt

When I do this, Visudo gives me a syntax error message without specifying what the syntax problem is. I am guessing it has to do with the two-word username. How do I deal with this?

I have command line experience in Linux, but getting under the hood of the Mac is new to me. Thanks in advance!

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    That’s not the username sudo uses, that’s a display name. Use the id command to enumerate each user if you don’t know the gid or inspect things using dscl or in /var/db/dslocal to find the proper username for this Clark K account. Welcome to Ask Different and to macOS command line peculiarities.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Aug 30 at 15:33
  • @bmike: Are you saying the numeric uid sh(c)ould be used in sudoers?
    – Seamus
    Commented Aug 30 at 21:10
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    No, I would use the short name as defined in the plist file or what id reports back for the uid.
    – bmike ♦
    Commented Aug 30 at 23:54

1 Answer 1

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The display name is only relevant on GUI level, the underlaying BSD Unix needs usernames (as Linux and any other Unix does).

  • Log in as the user you want to create the sudoers entry for
  • Open Terminal
  • Run id -nu

The name shown (for "Clark K" it most likely would be clarkk) is the one to be used when adding the entry to sudoers.

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