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How to repair permissions?

Benz63amg

Benz63amg

macrumors 601
Original poster
Oct 17, 2010
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hey guys, so for the past few years i always did a disk permission repair using disk utility every 2 months or so to keep my mac running smooth, i upgraded to el capitan and i opened disk utility and i see that there is no more disk permission repair feature, how do i repair permissions now in el capitan?
 
As per the beta 7 release notes...

  • System file permissions are automatically protected, and updated, during Software Updates. The Repair Permissions function is no longer necessary.
 
so i dont ever need to do a permission repair? im running el capitan GM,

also, on september 30th when the final of el capitan comes out, will i still be promoted to update or i technically already have the final version installed?
 
The only version of El Capitan that still has this feature is Developer Preview 1. They removed it in DP2 and it never appeared in any of the public betas.

After public release the bootable usbs of developer previews usually become pretty useless. But this is an exception.

So I'll keep my bootable usb of DP1 for considerably longer than I normally would.
 
Gav2k said:
As per the beta 7 release notes...

  • System file permissions are automatically protected, and updated, during Software Updates. The Repair Permissions function is no longer necessary.
Click to expand...

And do you really trust this?

I have repaired disks properly several times with diskwarrior which picked up lots of problems disk utility didn't.

I suspect the same will be true of repairing permissions. They say it is no longer necessary. And what they have done may well be an improvement. But I bet there will still be some bits and pieces which still need to be repaired despite this.
 
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tywebb13 said:
And do you really trust this?

I have repaired disks properly several times with diskwarrior which picked up lots of problems disk utility didn't.

I suspect the same will be true of repairing permissions. They say it is no longer necessary. And what they have done may well be an improvement. But I bet there will still be some bits and pieces which still need to be repaired despite this.
Click to expand...

Permissions won't be getting altered by anything with System Integrity Protection. So there is nothing to worry about and nothing could really go wrong with them to require repairing them.

Permissions are safe/protected.
 
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tywebb13 said:
And do you really trust this?

I have repaired disks properly several times with diskwarrior which picked up lots of problems disk utility didn't.

I suspect the same will be true of repairing permissions. They say it is no longer necessary. And what they have done may well be an improvement. But I bet there will still be some bits and pieces which still need to be repaired despite this.
Click to expand...
I didn't say either way to be honest. Was merely posting why the options gone.
 
also, on september 30th when el capitan comes out to the public, will i still be prompted to update or i technically already have the final version installed? (i installed the Golden master last week)
 
If you leave SIP (System Integrity Protection) enabled, you should never have to repair permissions again. If you disable SIP, well, you may be out of luck.

First, understand what repair permissions does: It resets the permissions of certain system files based on known, expected values. You used to have to use repair permissions because some poorly written software installers would change permissions in order to install files in various system library locations. This function doesn't actually repair anything, just change the permissions back.

With SIP, other applications are no longer allowed to make changes to system file permissions; hence, no need to do repairs.

Third party applications likely just used the built-in repair permissions functionality - so it may be a while before a third party utility comes out that actually sets system permissions to expected values.
 
how do i check if "SIP (System Integrity Protection)" is enabled or disabled to make sure i dont have to repair permissions ever again?
 
many of us will disable SIP on day 1. I hate the whole idea of SIP. It's the first step along the road of a total lockdown like IOS as far as I'm concerned. That said, probably fine for the average casual user.
 
xgman said:
many of us will disable SIP on day 1. I hate the whole idea of SIP. It's the first step along the road of a total lockdown like IOS as far as I'm concerned. That said, probably fine for the average casual user.
Click to expand...

Its fine for any user. You are exaggerating. In fact, SIP is great for power users because it makes sure that a careless sudo command will not kill your base OS. I certainly welcome the idea of restricting the third-party application to where they belong instead of them potentially messing with system-critical components. They only valid reason to disable SIP is when you want to hack OS X in a way that is not supported by its designers. If you think that you absolutely need to do that — you have the ability.
 
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leman said:
Its fine for any user. You are exaggerating. In fact, SIP is great for power users because it makes sure that a careless sudo command will not kill your base OS. I certainly welcome the idea of restricting the third-party application to where they belong instead of them potentially messing with system-critical components. They only valid reason to disable SIP is when you want to hack OS X in a way that is not supported by its designers. If you think that you absolutely need to do that — you have the ability.
Click to expand...

I like how SIP will force developers to use the proper locations now. When you use an installer, or, worse, a custom installer and it prompts you for your administrator password, you can never be sure that it’s not abusing this. I never feel comfortable using installers these days, especially now that adware bundling seems to become more widespread. SIP means that system locations are off-limits and I welcome this step.

Even on Linux systems I often see the recommendation to not even install sudo. It’s a recipe for trouble, especially on systems that less tech-savvy users use.
 
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xgman said:
many of us will disable SIP on day 1. I hate the whole idea of SIP. It's the first step along the road of a total lockdown like IOS as far as I'm concerned. That said, probably fine for the average casual user.
Click to expand...
I highly doubt "MANY" of us will disable SIP. Most people don't even understand the reasoning or point of it.
 
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Does this terminal command still work in the beta Golden Master?

diskutil repairPermissions /
 
It's gone, I'm afraid. I too am annoyed by this, but maybe we should trust Apple, they obviously know what they are doing by removing this option.
 
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