Many Line Error When Installing Homebrew

[robfreed10]

Hello all,

When I go to install Homebrew, I get a massive error in my terminal referencing my /etc/sudoers file. It is weird because I am already the admin on my computer. I have also tried enabling root user and that did not work. If anyone knows the issue please help. I will share a screenshot of the error. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Robert Freed

[carlocab]

Looks like your /etc/sudoers file is borked. Not sure of the best way to fix it, but Google may help you.

[SMillerDev]

Just updating won't reset the system configuration files. What might be possible is opening /etc/sudoers in textedit. If that's possible you could delete the offending lines.

[carlocab]

Not necessarily. You can, if you wish. Actually, maybe just reinstalling the OS without erasing everything may work too, in which case upgrading to any newer version of macOS (including Catalina) might fix your problem too.

[robfreed10]

@SMillerDev I have heard conflicting arguments for that. Some have said deleting those lines could be quite harmful to my computers memory. Also, when I do open my /etc/sudoers file, the lines where the errors occur are a very weird piece of text. But I am unsure if I should openly share my etc/sudoers file contents

[SMillerDev]

I have heard conflicting arguments for that. Some have said deleting those lines could be quite harmful to my computers memory.

Sudoers manages access rights so it has nothing to do with the computer memory.

[robfreed10]

So you believe just deleting that text will help? It is just a text file, so I guess it could.

[carlocab]

Here's what my /etc/sudoers looks like. Maybe it will help you fix your problem if you can, in fact, open it using TextEdit.

#
# Sample /etc/sudoers file.
#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# See the sudoers man page for the details on how to write a sudoers file.

##
# Override built-in defaults
##
Defaults        env_reset
Defaults        env_keep += "BLOCKSIZE"
Defaults        env_keep += "COLORFGBG COLORTERM"
Defaults        env_keep += "__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING"
Defaults        env_keep += "CHARSET LANG LANGUAGE LC_ALL LC_COLLATE LC_CTYPE"
Defaults        env_keep += "LC_MESSAGES LC_MONETARY LC_NUMERIC LC_TIME"
Defaults        env_keep += "LINES COLUMNS"
Defaults        env_keep += "LSCOLORS"
Defaults        env_keep += "SSH_AUTH_SOCK"
Defaults        env_keep += "TZ"
Defaults        env_keep += "DISPLAY XAUTHORIZATION XAUTHORITY"
Defaults        env_keep += "EDITOR VISUAL"
Defaults        env_keep += "HOME MAIL"

Defaults        lecture_file = "/etc/sudo_lecture"

##
# User alias specification
##
# User_Alias    FULLTIMERS = millert, mikef, dowdy

##
# Runas alias specification
##
# Runas_Alias   OP = root, operator

##
# Host alias specification
##
# Host_Alias    CUNETS = 128.138.0.0/255.255.0.0
# Host_Alias    CSNETS = 128.138.243.0, 128.138.204.0/24, 128.138.242.0
# Host_Alias    SERVERS = master, mail, www, ns
# Host_Alias    CDROM = orion, perseus, hercules

##
# Cmnd alias specification
##
# Cmnd_Alias    PAGERS = /usr/bin/more, /usr/bin/pg, /usr/bin/less

##
# User specification
##

# root and users in group wheel can run anything on any machine as any user
root            ALL = (ALL) ALL
%admin          ALL = (ALL) ALL

## Read drop-in files from /private/etc/sudoers.d
## (the '#' here does not indicate a comment)
#includedir /private/etc/sudoers.d

[robfreed10]

That is exactly what my file looks like. But after your last line, in my file that is where the error begins. However, I can not decipher what this means.

[robfreed10]

ALL=NOPASSWD:SETENV: /var/root/Applications/souter/souter

this is just one error.

[carlocab]

I would delete that. Or, at least, comment it out using #. Do you know how that got there?

You can probably also fix the error by checking man sudoers for the correct syntax.

[robfreed10]

No clue how it got there at all. I needed to download MongoDB for a class and that download required me to install Homebrew, which is how I got here.

[gromgit]

/var/root/Applications/souter/souter

I suspect you've been infected by malware: https://labs.sentinelone.com/how-adload-macos-malware-continues-to-adapt-evade/

At this point, I'd:

• make sure I had a good backup
• reformat and reinstall macOS
• restore only the files I needed from the backup