Here's how you change privs:
Get info on what you want to change, by pressing Cmd-I after selecting the file in the Finder. Then click on the popup and drag to "Privileges". Here you should be able to change the privs for the owner, the group, and everyone else. Unfortunately, this doesn't work all the time, so here's how to do it via the command lind:
Open the terminal, and type sudo chmod , including the last space. Now, lets figure out what privs you want to give.
Read = 4
Write = 2
Execute = 1
There are three priveleges you have to give.. to the owner of the file, to the group assosciated with the file, and to everyone else. So say you want to give the owner full access, the group only read and execute access, and nothing to everyone else. The 3-digit number you would use is 750 (7=4+2+1 and 5=4+1). So type this number and a space after what you've already typed. Now you should have a command that looks like this: sudo chmod 750 with the last space.
One thing before the fun part. If you want to issue these priveleges to a whole folder including everything in that folder, you want to issue the recursive chmod command. DO NOT MODIFY ANY FOLDERS WITH A RECURSIVE CHMOD COMMAND IF THOSE FOLDERS CONTAIN SYSTEM RESOURCES. This includes the System and Library folders at the root of your disk. You should be able to safely issue a recursive chmod command to your own home folder, but do so at your own risk, and make sure these are the privs you want before doing this. That said, to issue the recursive chmod command, just insert a -R between the chmod and the 3-digit number. It should now look like this: sudo chmod -R 750
Now here comes the fun part. Find the file or folder you want to change the privs of. When you have, drag it to the Terminal window. The path to the folder should be auto-inputed correctly formatted, and this is a BIG time saver then having to explain how to correctly format the path. Plus it makes sure you didn't have any errors in the path. Once you do this, you're all set. You can press return and your privs will be changed.
If you need to change the owner or group, it's pretty simple too. Just issue the commands:
sudo chown -R ownername pathname, where -R is the optional recursive element, ownername should be changed to the name of the desired new owner, and pathname should be the pathname to the file or folder obtained by dragging the file/folder to the Terminal window.
Similarly, the format for the group command is sudo chgrp -R groupname pathname, where -R is the optional recursive element, groupname should be changed to the name of the desired new group, and pathname should be the pathname to the file or folder obtained by dragging the file/folder to the Terminal window.
Hope this helps!
REMEMBER TO MAKE SURE YOU DON'T MODIFY THE PRIVS OF ANY SYSTEM FILES.
