Question regarding permissions

[JupiterZen]

Why is nobody else questioning the need for an option to "repair permissions"?

Permissions (basic file rights) are the fundaments of a secure system. Or (for example) a properly setup company fileserver with sensitive information that not every employee needs to know.

If my file rights structures on many of my clients Novell Netware servers would get corrupted or changed by simply using it and installing some software on it. I would have a lot of angry clients and I'd be talking to Novell Techsupport about what the f*ck is going on.

So why do the permissions on Mac OS X get corrupted so easily?

Maybe some UNIX guys can shine light in my eyes, because I feel that I must be missing something important in my reasoning here.

But I can't figure out what.

 

[Bear]

I have run repair permissions at various points because I was curious about much the same thing. Unless there is sloppy software or people mucking where they shouldn't be, there should be no need to repair permissions.

Apparently it's during the installs when these things seem to get set wrong. Probably as a by product of software installation.

I do know that iMovie and iPhoto had incorrect permissions right after installation on a few files.

However, the permissions seem to stay okay on my systems on a normal day to day basis.

Maybe some of the hacks that people are running are causing problems. Who knows for sure. Anyway, while fixing permissions seems to fix some of the problems, I don't think that it should be the first answer to every issue.

Maybe you should (like I do) run a verify or repair permissions every so often, and then see if there is anything you do that causes them to get out of whack.

 

[timbloom]

It mainly has to do with people poorly porting programs and files to os x. Installing files in say /library should be editable by admins, whereas some files might just set it to that user. Seems to be mainly cause by these installers, running os 9 or classic (biggest security hole in 10) can really fudge up your permissions. Is there a need with os x: definately. Apple is pretty much expirementing with unix as a mainstream OS, and this was just a major problem they ran into. Maybe future versions of installer apps can become smarter to the needs of the underlying OS, but just like any OS, the Mac OS is evolving to fit a consumer desktop while still maintaining fully compliant unix core. Really tough job they face, and they have done a great job so far. We should slowly see these things get ironed out in the future.