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Possible fix for can't authenticate installers bug

AuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges failed with status: -2129264641

I may have a fix. I'd been hitting this in both 10.6 and 10.7, and while upgrading to 10.8 seemed to fix it, that's not always an option. Today, I was looking at the file responsible for this, /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline, and finally saw what I should have seen before: the file size was zero. Yeah, that'll do it.

So the steps to fix, (note, this is off my work wiki, so it's set up for someone without a lot of experience):

first, find a machine, preferably a server of the same major OS version, i.e. 10.6.x, 10.7.x. Then:

scp the file from /usr/libexec to the the target machine:
sudo scp /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline zimmermanadmin@targetip:/Users/Shared
On the target machine, delete the old zero-byte version
sudo rm /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, move the file to the right location:
mv /Users/Shared/security_authtrampoline usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the ownership:
sudo chown root:wheel usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, zero out the permissions so we know they'll be correct once we set them:
sudo chmod 000 usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the owner permssions to read/write/execute, and enable the setuid bit:
sudo chown u=+rwxs usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the group and world permissions to execute only:
sudo chown go=+x usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline

At least in my tests, it's worked so far. Hopefully, this helps someone else out too.

Categories: General Computing, Mac Matters, Technology

Posted by John C. Welch at 14:34 | Permalink

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So, if you've had cases where you're trying to install/uninstall something, and you get the authentication dialog, you authenticate and...nothing. Repeated tries don't work. If you look in the logs, you see an error like:\n\nAuthorizationExecuteWithPrivileges failed with status: -2129264641\n\nI may have a fix. I'd been hitting this in both 10.6 and 10.7, and while upgrading to 10.8 seemed to fix it, that's not always an option. Today, I was looking at the file responsible for this, /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline, and finally saw what I should have seen before: the file size was zero. Yeah, that'll do it.\n\nSo the steps to fix, (note, this is off my work wiki, so it's set up for someone without a lot of experience):\n\nfirst, find a machine, preferably a server of the same major OS version, i.e. 10.6.x, 10.7.x. Then:\n\n

scp the file from /usr/libexec to the the target machine:
\n sudo scp /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline zimmermanadmin@targetip:/Users/Shared
On the target machine, delete the old zero-byte version
\n sudo rm /usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, move the file to the right location:
\n mv /Users/Shared/security_authtrampoline usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the ownership:
\n sudo chown root:wheel usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, zero out the permissions so we know they'll be correct once we set them:
\n sudo chmod 000 usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the owner permssions to read/write/execute, and enable the setuid bit:
\n sudo chown u=+rwxs usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline
On the target machine, set the group and world permissions to execute only:
\n sudo chown go=+x usr/libexec/security_authtrampoline

\n\nAt least in my tests, it's worked so far. Hopefully, this helps someone else out too.