Permission Repairs

[untamedhysteria]

I've been wondering why we keep having to repair permissions in OSX? Why do they keep messing up? I didn't seem to have permission errors in FreeBSD before I came to the Mac World..

This also isn't intended to start a flame...just curiosity. It's been bothering me for a while and hopefully someone advanced in this subject can shed some light so I can understand it more.

Thanks

UntamedHysteria

 

[yellow]

Because installers that require admin passwords often have permissions changes associated with themselves that allow them to fully install their pieces/parts. This includes OS updates/patches. The only REAL times you should Repair Permissions is after anything installed that requires an admin password, any other times you're fooling yourself and/or fiddling with permissions you shouldn't be fiddling with.

Some other things to note:

Permissions repair does NOT decend into your home directory, so if you have permissions problems within ~, you need to fix them yourself.

The "proper" permissons are stored in BOMs (Bill of Materials files) within /Library/Receipts/. When you Repair Permissions, the BOM is compared with the actual permissions, and changes are made if there are differences.

Hope this helps.