Funked up File Permissions! Help!
These file permissions really give me more grief than promised security, it feels sometimes. More often than not they come into action to prevent me from doing what I want than protecting my files from intruders. So my question is threefold:
?Is there a utility out there that can straighten out my file permissions en masse (set them to default or something)?
?For my personal files, what should the "group" be set to as a default?
?If I set the access permissions in the Get Info window and hit the "Apply to Enclosed Items" function, it doesn't seem to do anything to the enclosed folders and files. Is this normal, or is something broken? Any explanations?
I know- most likely I am not obeying the expectations for file accesses in some way. Anybody have a down-to-earth explanation that could allow me to get along better with access permissions more easily and not butt heads so often? It's not so much a problem on a single computer. However, when I want to transfer files or do backups between 2 computers on a network (both are my own primary use, pretty much) using 2 different user accounts, I seem to run into obstacle after obstacle. Anybody else have recurring troubles like this? (...and in the end, I can eventually get files transferred, but the access permissions do not seem "appropriate" on the destination computer, so I end up being screwed again as soon as I want to access them on that computer...)
?Is there a utility out there that can straighten out my file permissions en masse (set them to default or something)?
?For my personal files, what should the "group" be set to as a default?
?If I set the access permissions in the Get Info window and hit the "Apply to Enclosed Items" function, it doesn't seem to do anything to the enclosed folders and files. Is this normal, or is something broken? Any explanations?
I know- most likely I am not obeying the expectations for file accesses in some way. Anybody have a down-to-earth explanation that could allow me to get along better with access permissions more easily and not butt heads so often? It's not so much a problem on a single computer. However, when I want to transfer files or do backups between 2 computers on a network (both are my own primary use, pretty much) using 2 different user accounts, I seem to run into obstacle after obstacle. Anybody else have recurring troubles like this? (...and in the end, I can eventually get files transferred, but the access permissions do not seem "appropriate" on the destination computer, so I end up being screwed again as soon as I want to access them on that computer...)
Comments
Originally posted by icfireball
Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility --> select your HD, and somewhere in one of the tabs should be "repair disk permissions"
Yes, I often do that. The option is only available for the system partition. What if I want to "fix" permissions for stuff on a different partition?
Originally posted by Randycat99
Yes, I often do that. The option is only available for the system partition. What if I want to "fix" permissions for stuff on a different partition?
It's only possible to fix permissions on the boot volume.
On other volumes, in the Finder do a GET INFO and click the checkbox for "Ignore Ownership on this Volume"
Originally posted by jabohn
It's only possible to fix permissions on the boot volume.
On other volumes, in the Finder do a GET INFO and click the checkbox for "Ignore Ownership on this Volume"
Yes, I've done that, and found it pretty much eliminates the problem. However, is this really a "fix" or a "workaround"? Am I intentionally circumventing security features by doing this, or are we expected to enable "ignore ownership" on non-system partitions in order to use them? I just want to know if this is "best/accepted practice" or am I employing a workaround to "make" something work that should be fixed in another manner?
Originally posted by Randycat99
Am I intentionally circumventing security features by doing this, or are we expected to enable "ignore ownership" on non-system partitions in order to use them?
Someone else is probably better equipped to answer that one, but my impression was that it's not a big deal to disable ownership on a secondary disk or partition. The drawback would be that if you have multiple users, another user would have full access to that volume. Since I'm the only user on my machine it doesn't matter to me.
If you want to leave Ownership on and need to change permission on a group of files, then check out this free program:
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/12057