Permissions Question

[dogbone]

If I'm the only user of the computer, what is the difference if an app is owned by the system or by the user if the permissions are set to read and write for the user and for other admin groups?

Also are there any apps which *must* be only owned by the system.

And how does 'repair permissions' affect any changes made?

 

[asherman13]

If I'm the only user of the computer, what is the difference if an app is owned by the system or by the user if the permissions are set to read and write for the user and for other admin groups?

Also are there any apps which *must* be only owned by the system.

And how does 'repair permissions' affect any changes made?

Those are some good questions; I've sometimes wondered about them myself.

mad_jew? (Since he's the expert on telling people to reset their permissions. )

 

[janey]

repairing permissions returns the permissions of the system files to their original values.

also, don't concern yourself too much about the different users, they're there for a reason, shouldn't muck around with them usually (i.e. don't kill -9 kernel_task )

 

[mad jew]

Here is a troubleshooting page from Apple's Support site. Although its aim is to solve issues, it also holds a lot of useful information, some of which may answer some of your questions.

As janey says though, don't worry to much about it. OSX handles all this stuff quite adequately IMO.