Filed under: OS, UNIX / BSD, Leopard
New eBook explains Leopard's permissions
Despite John Gruber's longstanding assertion that "Repair Disk Permissions is voodoo," Brian Tanaka has published "Take Control of Permissions in Leopard" for the Take Control series of eBooks. It's part troubleshooting (how to delete stuck files, for example), part tips and tricks (the best ways to keep files private) and part theory. It's only $10US for 87 pages of very useful information. For example, you might learn that repairing permissions with Disk Utility won't change the permissions to any of your user-centric files -- it's meant to restore [Apple's] application and system file
[Update: John Welch pointed out the typo in the 2nd paragraph; of course, Repair Permissions changes permissions, not preferences.]
[Via MacMinute]
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Floggy said 6:00PM on 2-25-2008
Of course you completely mischaracterize Gruber's stance on repairing disk permissions.
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Michael Rose said 7:00PM on 2-25-2008
http://daringfireball.net/2006/04/repair_permissions_voodoo
"Seriously, ‘Repair Permissions’ Is Voodoo"
I think Dave quoted John, no characterization required.
Floggy said 7:58PM on 2-25-2008
It's mischaracterization by implication. Gruber isn't saying permission repairing in and of itself is voodoo. What he says is:
"If you are not experiencing any symptoms that would indicate permission-related problems, there is no reason to run Repair Permissions. Repair Permissions is not a periodic maintenance task or a preventive measure."
THIS is "longstanding assertion" Gruber is referring to; periodic permission repairing as a panacea, not a fix to specific permission issues.
The cheeky phrasing in the TUAW post makes it sound like Gruber is against repairing permissions PERIOD, which is bollocks.
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gozer said 10:22PM on 2-25-2008
i love the 'repair,install,repair' crowd.
bunch of paranoids.
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Sumsa said 5:19AM on 2-26-2008
Well, call me paranoid then.
I´ve been doing Mac-Support for ~300 people for the last 3 years, and nearly every time I install major updates, I do what you call paranoid. Because if there is a permission problem before I install / update, it could make everything stop working correctly, like Safari crashing or Mails "disappearing". And if there isn´t one before installing, there will in most cases be something wrong after install.
While not everyone runs into problems with updates / installers, my experience tells me that a install procedure which takes 10 minutes longer is way better than solving strange problems for hours afterwards.
Michael said 2:47AM on 2-26-2008
It's pretty evident that this book will be mostly about what are appropriate permissions for your own documents and how to set and change permissions from the command line with chown and chmod and matters like that.
IOW, it'll be about the Unix side of things which most Mac users know very little about (despite running a form of Unix). I'll eat my hat if the book is mostly about using the "repair permissions" GUI tool in Disk Utility. That being so, the swipe at Gruber is not just misconceived but actually pretty much irrelevant in a mini-review of the book.
Apple doesn't suggest running that tool willy-nilly to deal with problems that are not permission-related or just for no reason when you have no problem. If you actually open Disk Utility and highlight a volume in the left pane you'll see text over on the right that Apple's put there. It says:
"If you have a permissions problem with a file installed by the Mac OS X installer, click Repair Permissions".
So, if you haven't, don't. What Apple says there couldn't be much clearer.
Apple users who run the tool when they don't need to don't do so because they are "paranoid". They do it because they don't understand what permissions *are*. This book, since it presumably gives a pretty full explanation of what they are and how they work -- I'm guessing; we never learn from this review -- would be a good for them because it would remove their misconceptions. At the moment, they're carrying out a procedure at inappropriate times and that's because it's a procedure they don't understand. That's almost by definition magical thinking and magical behaviour -- "Voodoo", if you like. John Gruber is quite right.
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rob moir said 1:17PM on 2-26-2008
A shocking amount of people seem to use magic troubleshooting steps
On a Mac? Why then you need to 'repair permissions' every time you do something out of the ordinary. Never mind whether or not you understand why - or even if you understand exactly what it does and hence can't see how it's going to help you, people will still suggest it and say "it won't hurt to try" if you ask why.
On Windows? Then rebooting is the only troubleshooting step you need (not helped by the fact that it _does_ work more often than it should). Again, never mind if you actually know how the system works and stopped and restarted just the services you needed manually, you better reboot anyway. After all, it won't hurt to try, will it?
Supporting computers should be better than this. It's supposed to be at least close to a science but these approaches treat it as a religion.
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Sumsa said 2:32PM on 2-26-2008
Well, Gruber has responded;
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2008/february#mon-25-floggy
And though I agree with him on most points, my experience tells me that there IS reason to run it before / after every installer / updater.
So I agree to Gruber saying it´s not necessary to repair permissions before / after installations UNLESS you suspect problems with file permissions; but I´ll also say that permission problems WILL - in my experience - show up after every third or so installer. And if I help people on other computers than mine, I cannot guarantee that they already fixed these errors. So I have to fix them before installing too.
Doesn´t that sound reasonable?
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doggo said 5:55PM on 2-26-2008
*Sticks pin in John Gruber voodoo doll* It can't hurt...
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Louis said 6:53PM on 2-26-2008
But what a lot of people forget is that the only reason for an installer to be used is to infact install the components correctly, in their correct location - and the correct permissions. Repairing permissions regularly is complete nonsense. Its a troubleshooting tool, not a preventative tool. Its used only when trouble relating to permissions on SYSTEM files or packages installed via Installer.app (/Library/Receipts).
I never repair permissions, but on some occasions I have for no reason (just bumbing around in Disk Utility), and it repaired some 100+ something files. If there were that many incorrect permissions, wouldn't there be a problem with my computer? There wasn't it was working fine.
If you go and get your Apple Certification you will learn exactly what I have told you here, and even better permission troubleshooting tools & techniques.
The only thing we need to worry about are dodgy VISE installers, Stuffit Installers, any JAVA based installer and crappy printer driver installers.
To Sumsa:
Perhaps the causes for your weird crashes and missing emails are pertaining from something you overlooked whilst being too busy frantically worrying about repairing permissions. All system admins make mistakes - but its no need to blame it on permissions.
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rob moir said 5:03AM on 2-27-2008
Sumsa, you say:
"but I´ll also say that permission problems WILL - in my experience - show up after every third or so installer."
Do you mean you have actual problems with the machine working correctly that can be directly and unequivocally be traced to an identifiable fault with permissions, or do you just mean that you run the repair permissions tool after every 3 or so installs and it finds something to correct?
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Sumsa said 5:55PM on 2-27-2008
To Louis:
Yeah, I´d like to know in which certification they told you that. I´ve always heard different.
You say permission problems will only show up with Installer.app, VISE, StuffIt and JAVA installers, which leaves us........ drag´n´drop-installation, or what?!
I´m not telling anyone that every installer completely messes up all system files, but I´ve seen e.g. the Cisco VPN-Installer setting wrong permissions for quite a lot files. This (and resulting problems) could be fixed afterwards by repairing permissions. And I´ve also seen the Cisco VPN not working correctly on systems where the permissions have not been corrected before. This is just an example, if you wish I can go on. As Gruber says, repairing permissions make sense if you suspect problems, and often after (and before) installation one should suspect one.
Additionally wrong permissions don´t necessarily mean .app´s not working correctly. Most applications don´t care about an additional "w" for group and others, but sadly some do, and some installers even mess up file ownership and corresponding permission.
to rob moir:
Just set up a fresh OS X yourself, and just for fun repair permissions. When everything is set "correct" (in means of the Receipts and Disk Utility doesn´t report any errors), install software and check permissions. In my experience (3 years of supporting ~300 Macs) something will go "wrong" after every third or fourth or so installer.
As I said this doesn´t necessarily mean complete malfunctioning system but can show "strange behaviour" of some apps.
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evilproducer said 3:59AM on 2-29-2008
I probably don't know as much as I should (or could) about the permissions and other UNIX underpinnings in OS X, but I do know from a purely observational standpoint, that my machine runs much smoother when I repair my permissions once a month, as compared to a friends sister, who I occasionally help with her G5 iMac.
As an example, she was having a rough time installing a game a week or so ago. I went to help and discovered that it was due to an outdated driver (since updated, thank god!) I noticed the system seemed generally sluggish, despite over a gig of RAM. She had just installed Leopard as well. As a preventive measure I decided to _Verify_ disk permissions. An operation that took close to an hour! My HD of similar volume size and utilized disk space takes less than five minutes. The number of errors on her drive were huge! I should also note that I had a couple unsettling experiences trying to burn a cd with the installer. For instance the burn process didn't complete on one disk due to a media error, but once the fault was cleared and the bad disc was ejected, the image would remain in the sidebar of the Finder window with the little burn icon next it. I tried to delete it and the Finder couldn't find the file. I used permission repair and the problem "magically" disappeared.
So, while I respect Gruber, and acquiesce to his superior knowledge regarding the underpinnings of OS X, I do believe there are reasons to regularly repair- or at the least, verify my disk permissions.
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George said 4:40PM on 2-29-2008
"I do know from a purely observational standpoint, that my machine runs much smoother when I repair my permissions once a month, as compared to a friends sister, who I occasionally help with her G5 iMac."
Congratulations, you've discovered the placebo effect.
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user x said 11:46PM on 2-29-2008
I work for a very high volume Apple authorized service center and have been certified to repair Steve's little bundles of joy for over 10 years now. I can say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if repairing permissions is at the top of your troubleshooting list you are either 1. A hack (or just don't have the experience to know any better) or 2. Had the misfortune of dealing with a poorly written installer, on a regular basis, that was written by a hack (although, not being able to figure that one out might qualify you as one). That said, if you were to run the repair permissions script through disk utility I'd give you about a 99% probability that it will report "problems". Quite often an overwhelming amount of "problems".... it always fixes something. If Apple dubbed it critical it would be invoked by the installer App or be called on at boot. Having worked on more Apple machines than I care to think about.... sigh.....I can count the number of times that repairing disk permissions, using disk utility, fixed an issue on my two hands. It is, quite frankly, one of the last things that i do when faced with a software issue, often times forgetting about it. Unless, of course, it is glaring obviously a permissions issue.
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Kernalpanx said 12:53PM on 3-03-2008
I have been doing OSX support since day 1 .. repair permissions use to be a regular trouble shooting practice until about 10.3 or so..... i use manage about 1200 users and about 24 xserves and have only had one repair permissions actually do anything.... suddenly after repairing permissions the dvd was recognized by Toast ... silly toast... plutil does more for me then repair permissions of late.
I now support about 250 + xserves for a hosting company in Toronto and we never do repair permissions on anything anymore.
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