Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

How often do you repair permissions?

How Often Do You Repair Permissions

  • Never

    Votes: 20 18.5%

  • Daily

    Votes: 4 3.7%

  • Weekly

    Votes: 16 14.8%

  • Bi-Weekly

    Votes: 2 1.9%

  • Monthly

    Votes: 23 21.3%

  • Very Rarely

    Votes: 43 39.8%
  • Total voters
    108
I repair permissions, and run all 3 maintenance scripts after I install something, everytime.

Thats about it tho
 
I got software from Atomic Bird which automatically repairs permissions on a weekly schedule and I've forgotten about it for years. Good thing it takes less than that to make me hard in my pants.😛

*feels a breeze and leg stiffens up...*
 
I will rarely, if ever, explicitly Repair Permissions. The job might get executed as part of my running OnyX every few weeks or so, though.
 
It's encouraging to see the absolute majority either never repair permissions or very rarely. I believe there is a bug currently which makes this dangerous.

epochblue said:
I will rarely, if ever, explicitly Repair Permissions. The job might get executed as part of my running OnyX every few weeks or so, though.
Click to expand...
If you repair permissions through OnyX then you are explicitly repairing permissions.
 
Fairly said:
It's encouraging to see the absolute majority either never repair permissions or very rarely. I believe there is a bug currently which makes this dangerous.
Click to expand...


Huh? What's this bug you're talking about? Sounds interesting.
 
Since Tiger, never. I don't believe it's necessary anymore, like using a utility to force running cron jobs. I'm not sure it ever was, really. It's probably time to retire this little bit of Mac Voodoo.
 
I only repair them manually when I see certain kinds of problems or errors.... which ends up being once every several months or less. I verify the disk if the iMac got shut down by a power outage (still need a UPS!!!)

Like IJ said, I basically gave up on "forcing" routine maintenance.
 
mkrishnan said:
I only repair them manually when I see certain kinds of problems or errors.... which ends up being once every several months or less. I verify the disk if the iMac got shut down by a power outage (still need a UPS!!!)

Like IJ said, I basically gave up on "forcing" routine maintenance.
Click to expand...

Same here, took a little while to get out of my windows habits but i just leave it to do its own thing.
 
I voted weekly...

I very rarely repair permissions manually (most often using MainMenu), only in the rare cases when my Mac feels a bit funky, in a non-specific way... then a quick repair and restart usually gets rid of the gremlins...

But, SuperDuper! always repairs permissions as part of the backup procedure, and even if I've been slacking a bit lately, I still intend to run SD! at least once a week to have current backup, thus also keeping my permissions repaired... 😉
 
Thanks for all the replies everyone.

The reason why I set up this poll is to see what kind of effect MOAB-15 would have on this community.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-0345

MOAB-15 overwrites any program in the /Applications folder that contains a SUID bit with a malicious binary, then uses disk utility to perform a escalation to root.

There will be no prompt for admin password. You won't see it coming.

I've tested the MOAB-15 POC on my up-to-date system and the POC still works. This means that we've been vulnerable to a zero-day exploit for almost half a year and Apple has said nothing about it. They haven't tried to fix it, or anything.

In addition, if you try to secure your system against this POC, disk utility will actively remove your security when you repair your permissions.
 
SC68Cal said:
Thanks for all the replies everyone.

The reason why I set up this poll is to see what kind of effect MOAB-15 would have on this community.

http://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2007-0345

MOAB-15 overwrites any program in the /Applications folder that contains a SUID bit with a malicious binary, then uses disk utility to perform a escalation to root.

There will be no prompt for admin password. You won't see it coming.

I've tested the MOAB-15 POC on my up-to-date system and the POC still works. This means that we've been vulnerable to a zero-day exploit for almost half a year and Apple has said nothing about it. They haven't tried to fix it, or anything.
Click to expand...

So are we at risk if we repair permissions or if we don't. And is it still present in 10.4.10 as t mentions 10.4.8
 
xUKHCx said:
So are we at risk if we repair permissions or if we don't. And is it still present in 10.4.10 as t mentions 10.4.8
Click to expand...

Sorry, I edit my comments after my initial post, as I think of more things to say.

But yes, you're vulnerable no matter what you do.
 
SC68Cal said:
Sorry, I edit my comments after my initial post, as I think of more things to say.

But yes, you're vulnerable no matter what you do.
Click to expand...

If that is the case then why does it matter how often we repair permissions as it doesn't seem to have an effect on the ability of this POC.

Thanks for the information, is there anything we can do to protect ourselves.
 
The only 2 occasions I repair permissions:

-Whenever I install new software.
-Whenever Mad Jew tells me. 😛
 
How does the MOAB POC actually get on the system / spread. What damage would it actually do, sorry for dumbing this down lots.
 
Normally after a system update of some sort. Especially iTunes as it always seems to find stuff to sort after an iTunes update although it might be there before the update, I wouldn't know😀
 
Can the exploit call Disk Utility to repair permissions without an admin authorization on a standard account? I follow the rest, but even if I repair permissions myself, I have to authorize (twice!) with an admin account and pw.
 
mkrishnan said:
Can the exploit call Disk Utility to repair permissions without an admin authorization on a standard account? I follow the rest, but even if I repair permissions myself, I have to authorize (twice!) with an admin account and pw.
Click to expand...

You're running a normal user account. Since you're not part of the admin group, the exploit cannot work until someone in the admin group runs it, or you authenticate with an admin user.

We'd have to set up a new poll to see how many people run as admin users on a daily basis as well.

Would someone start a new thread? We should get a new thread title to attract more people and warn them about this.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back