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What do the details in the Repair Disk Permissions window mean?

G

Greenfeather

macrumors newbie
Original poster
(I have Leopard, by the way.) I just did a Repair Disk Permissions, and in the details window, got such information as the following:

  • WARNING: SUID file [something something--was Greek to me, but the "Warning" caught my eye. What am I being warned of?]
  • Group differs on [many things listed]; should be [a number], group is [another number]. [What does this mean? Is differing good news, bad news, or no news?]
  • User differs on "System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM. framework/[blah blah blah] [Good, bad, or meaningless?]

Since this is called "Repair" Disk Permissions, are all these warnings and different users and different groups actually being repaired? Or what? 😱

Thank you!
 
Group numbers refer to different Unix "groups" of users (for example admins or staff); it's just telling you that the file has got the wrong group compared to what it's supposed to. Same with "User differs"--it's probably supposed to be "owned by" root or wheel, and got installed as if it were owned by admin or maybe a specific user.

None of these things are at all unusual, nor are they anything to worry about--they're usually a sign of a slightly funky installed that isn't setting permissions of the files it installs or updates to what they're supposed to be.

This generally wouldn't cause any issues, but if it were to, running the repair routine would fix it.

If you want to confirm that it's actually fixed what it mentions, you could run it again and see if nothing comes up, but don't worry--it pretty much takes care of everything.

If it were to NOT fix something, it's still highly unlikely to be an issue--there have, in the past, occasionally been things that it incorrectly lists as problem. Completely safe to ignore them--one run through and anything that really needs fixing should be fixed, regardless of anything superficially scary it says.
 
Thank you Makosuke (Re: Repair Disk Permissions)

I appreciate your information.

(Don't know if my installation was funky or not--I just put the Leopard disk in and let it do its thing. Nothing unusual occurred.)
 
Just to confirm, when you say "just put the Leopard disk in and let it do its thing" I assume you're talking about how you installed everything, not about doing the permissions repair.

I ask because unlike a disk repair (which you should do while booted from the install disc), Permissions Repair should be run while booted from the disk you're repairing permissions for. I don't know if this is still the case, but running Repair Permissions on your boot disk while booted from the install DVD could actually cause problems--I believe it relies on information from the currently running OS on what should have what permissions, and depending on what you've installed the installer may not know what should be set as what on your normal hard drive.
 
Disk repair, install discs, etc....?

When I said I just put the Leopard disc in, I was talking about when I upgraded to Leopard. The Repair Disk Permissions activity was a separate thing: Disk Utility > First Aid tab > Macintosh HD > Repair Disk Permissions.

Was that a mistake? What's the difference in procedure between the disk repair done while booted from the install (Leopard?) disc and Permissions Repair done while booted from the disk I'm repairing permissions for?

I don't think I was running Repair Permissions on my boot disk while booted from the install DVD--was I? If I clicked Macintosh HD? 😕

Thanks again.
 
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