[Tfug] Mac OSX permission problem...

[Jim March]

On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 7:18 AM, Zack Williams <zdwzdw at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I helped a friend set up his new iMac (Intel based, OS 10.5.2).  We
>> did a network between that and his old critter (also doing OSX).  I
>> managed to share his stuff from the old box with full
>> write-permissions, but once I copied his stuff to the new rig he still
>> had read-only permissions on it...and I could *not* figure out how to
>> reset them.
>>
>> chmod and chown don't accept the same "-R" switch to allow resetting a
>> whole directory tree (as in their /home/username dir).  Nothing in the
>> GUI supported permission resetting.  It was a nightmare.
>
> Are you elevating to root (via sudo) when you run chmod/chown? By
> default, home folders in OS X are owned by the user, with the group
> "staff".
>
> In 10.5, filesystem ACL's are turned on by default, which augment
> standard POSIX permissions, which may be getting in the way.  Run "ls
> -le" to see the ACL's. In 10.5 client the only common way to
> accidentally apply ACL's to any folder is via personal file sharing,
> which it sounds like you might have done.
>
> The GUI interface for permissions is in the Finder, File-> Get Info...
>  See the "Sharings and Permissions" section which may be collapsed.
> You can use the gear menu in that section to recursively apply
> permissions once you've changed them.
>
> - Zack

Yes, I'm doing chown/chmod with sudo.  Doesn't help.

"man chown" and "man chmod" list a different function for the -R
switch than the Linux "recursive" usage.  I forget what it was, but
basically I could see no way of doing recursive re-permissions unless
I did some very funky bash stuff involving maybe find piped to
chown/chmod?

I read something on Apple's own site on the ACLs and tried a command
to blow them away.  That same Apple page said they could be rebuilt
through a tool on the original install CD (which I have).  But
literally the only thing the original install CD can do is a
re-install of the OS, which didn't help.

Sigh.

The GUI tool under "get info" will not reset the permissions.  In
Ubuntu I sometimes do a "sudo nautilus" and access GUI permissions
tools as root that way - is there any sort of equivelent?

Failing that, is there a sure-fire terminal command that will reset
the permissions at /home/username/Deskop/"everything from there down"
to the user's permissions?!?

Jim