Mac OS Ventura Update asks for MacPorts password, password unknown

[ChristianPfeiferPhD]

Dear MacPorts Community,

I am facing the following problem.

I migrated an older MacBookAir (2013, OS Mojave 10.14, Intel) to a new one (2022, OS Ventura 13.0, M2 Chip). Now when I want to install a OS update to 13.1 the system wants a password related to MacPorts from me, which I do not have.

How can I reset the password?

I tried to uninstall macports, which however also did not work. The terminal displays

dlopen(/opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib, 0x000A): tried: '/opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib' (fat file, but missing compatible architecture (have 'x86_64,i386', need 'arm64')), '/System/Volumes/Preboot/Cryptexes/OS/opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib' (no such file), '/opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib' (fat file, but missing compatible architecture (have 'x86_64,i386', need 'arm64'))
    while executing
"load /opt/local/share/macports/Tcl/macports1.0/MacPorts.dylib"
    ("package ifneeded macports 1.0" script)
    invoked from within
"package require macports"
    (file "/opt/local/bin/port" line 38)

Thanks for the help.

[ChristianPfeiferPhD]

Screenshot of where and when the problem appears

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

There is no "password related to MacPorts".

To use MacPorts on this computer, you'll need to ​install MacPorts for Ventura. When it asks you for a password, it's asking for the password that goes with (one of) your computer's administrator account(s).

Operating system updates should not be aware of or care about anything related to MacPorts so they shouldn't be prompting you for any MacPorts-related information. But if that is happening, please show exactly the error message or prompt you're getting.

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

Replying to ryandesign:

please show exactly the error message or prompt you're getting.

I see you did show this in the screenshot. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the changes Apple has made in Ventura to be able to explain that. It looks like where it says "MacPorts" is a menu from which you can select usernames. Select the administrator account to which you know the password, then enter that password.

[ChristianPfeiferPhD]

Hi,

thanks for the replies.

In the drop down menu where I can change the use in the "software update" window which pops up, I can only choose "MacPorts", there is no other option.

I added another screenshot as attachment.

For now I tried to uninstall macports, which worked now so far, except that when I want to remove the user "macports" from my system I get the following error in the terminal

sudo dscl . -delete /Users/macports
Password:
<main> delete status: eDSPermissionError
<dscl_cmd> DS Error: -14120 (eDSPermissionError)

[ChristianPfeiferPhD]

Screenshot of where and when the problem appears, and user selection options

[ryandesign (Ryan Carsten Schmidt)]

When I search the Internet for eDSPermissionError I find information about secure token, a macOS security feature I don't know a lot about. It sounds like you might get this error if you try to delete the only user on your system that has the secure token attribute. I found instructions for how to check if your other admin accounts have secure token, and, if not, how to add it. If that's the situation for you, you should be able to delete the macports user after another user has been granted secure token. Then, running the MacPorts installer will recreate the macports user.

With my limited knowledge of secure token it doesn't seem like the macports user should ever have been granted that permission, but perhaps the migration assistant erroneously added it when you migrated from the old computer. I do know that the migration assistant does not handle the macports user well, nor the other user accounts that various MacPorts ports might create: if I remember correctly, migration assistant renumbers the user ids into the range used for normal user accounts so that the accounts become visible in the Users & Groups preference pane and elsewhere (whereas we created them in a different id range so that they would be hidden normally) and relocates their home directories into /Users where they don't belong. For proper functioning of MacPorts, you should move those home directories back where they belong and use dscl to edit the NFSHomeDirectory attribute back to what it should be. There is unfortunately no easy way to determine where each home directory belongs. The macports user's home directory belongs at /opt/local/var/macports/home but deleting the macports user and letting the installer recreate it should recreate that directory for you; you can then delete /Users/macports. For any other MacPorts ports' users you'll have to examine the code of each Portfile to see where the home directory should be.