Repairing permissions...

M

Martin1985

Registered
Hi guys,

I've heard a lot of people talk about repairing permissions on Macs. I just wondered if you could tell me when it's wise to do this? Is it something you should do once in a while? Should you only do it if something goes wrong?

I'm fairly new to the world of the Mac so I'm not sure exactly what maintenance tasks I should be running and when... If someone could help me with this, it would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Martin
15" Mac Book Pro 2GHz Intel Core Duo
OSX 10.4.9
1GB RAM
 
It's a maintenance task that is less important now than it was a few years ago when OSX appeared. You can run that when you install new software.
 
I'm somewhat new to macs as well, could someone explain exactly what 'permissions' are, and what repairing them does?

Thanks!
 
irfaan said:
I'm somewhat new to macs as well, could someone explain exactly what 'permissions' are, and what repairing them does?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Do a 'Get Info' from the finder menu on any application or file and the permissions are listed (what users have access). The Disk Utility's Repair Permissions use the permissions set in the files receipts (/Library/Receipts/) to reset the file permissions to what they are suppose to be.

The problem is some installers are poorly written and they can mess up file permissions real badly. The "Repair Permissions" functions corrects those permissions. IMHO "Repair Permissions" should be done once every two or three weeks ands after any software install that uses an installer.

You also can read about this here.
 
Haha, ok so it's probably a bad thing that I've had my Macbook Pro since August and never repaired permissions?!?!

I'll get on that tomorrow then!

Thanks guys, much appreciated!
 
Martin1985 said:
Haha, ok so it's probably a bad thing that I've had my Macbook Pro since August and never repaired permissions?!?!

I'll get on that tomorrow then!

Thanks guys, much appreciated!
Click to expand...


I hardly repair permissions and have no major complaints about the working of my systems. It is a bad thing that permissions checking should be so crucial to the proper working of a system.

If you experience no problems, do not bother to much about permissions (also call access rights like having permission to read a file, write a file, lock a file, delete a file etc.).


Good luck, Kees
 
One could also modify the '/etc/crontab' file (via the 'Administrator') with ...

39<tab>2<tab>*<tab>*<tab>*<tab>root<tab>diskutil repairPermissions /; diskutil repairPermissions /

... (where '<tab>' means to press the actual 'tab' key) which will automatically execute the 'diskutil' command, twice, every morning at 2.39 (local time).
 
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