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sudo Touch ID on MacBook

Troy Rippin

Troy Rippin

• 1 min read

To allow TouchID on your Mac to authenticate you for sudo access instead of a password you need to do the following.

  • Open Terminal
  • Switch to the root user with sudo su -
  • Edit the /etc/pam.d/sudo file with a command-line editor such as nano
  • The contents of this file should look like one of the following examples:
# sudo: auth account password session
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so

You need to add an additional auth line to the top so it now looks like this:

# sudo: auth account password session
auth       sufficient     pam_tid.so
auth       sufficient     pam_smartcard.so
auth       required       pam_opendirectory.so
account    required       pam_permit.so
password   required       pam_deny.so
session    required       pam_permit.so
  • Save the file. (Note: this file is normally read-only so saving your changes may require you to force the save)
  • Also note that pam_smartcard.so may not be present on older MacOS versions.
  • Exit from the root user or start a new terminal session.
  • Try to use sudo, and you should be prompted to authenticate with TouchID.
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