What is Skeleton Key and how is it used?

If you have ever needed to edit a core system configuration file or run a program with greater system privileges than your regular user account possesses, Skeleton Key is for you.

With a simple, drag-and-drop interface, Skeleton Key allows you to open programs and documents as your system's root user (the user which is allowed to do anything).

Warning: running a program as the root user gives that program the power to do anything to your machine. Be sure that you only run applications that you trust and only run them, as root, while performing operations which absolutely require that level of access.

Note: this is not a back-door into your system. Only users which are allowed to administer the machine can use Skeleton Key and they have to provide their password before opening any document or application.

Isn't this just the same as sudo or sudo open?
Sort of. Skeleton Key actually uses sudo to perform certain types of authentication and de-authentication. If you are comfortable with the command line, you probably could have guessed this. Skeleton Key is meant to be the GUI equivalent to this powerful tool. In fact, the first version of Skeleton Key (released for Mac OS 10.0) was almost literally sudo open but a security patch changed open so that it won't work with sudo, in such a way.