Repair Disk Permissions

[Steven Jackson]

Hi,

I have been using Macs since buying a PowerBook back in the early Panther days. I know it's ridiculous, but I've got into an obsessive routine when I start up my computer...

I power up and wait for OS X to load (Snow Leopard, at the moment), initiate and dismiss Dashboard to get it responsive, then open Disk Utility and repair Disk Permissions. I do this every time I start up my computer. I don't have any applications set to open automatically at startup but I then manually open iTunes, Twitter, Mail, Reeder, Safari, iCal and Things before I get to work...

Now, when I upgrade to Lion I quite fancy having all these items open automatically, some of them (iTunes and iCal) in full screen mode...

My question: is there any disadvantage to abandoning my long-held permissions repair routine? Or was it pointless all along? It was from forums like these, and scare stories, that I got into the habit in the first place, by the way. I also used to use the Terminal to run the cron scripts, but somehow managed to break the habit...

Steve.

 

[VTECaddict]

No sense in repairing permissions every single boot up. I typically do it after a software update, or just once in a blue moon when i go....hrmmm...havent repaired permissions in quite a while....

 

[stridemat]

It does seem a bit obsessive, however I don't think it's going to hurt.

 

[Steven Jackson]

No, I know it won't hurt. I'm just wondering if it does any good. If it does, I'll continue...

Let me put it another way: in Lion, is there any advantage to closing all open applications before shutting down the computer? Or is it just best to keep them running, in the state and position that suits you, so that they automatically resume next time you use your computer?

Steve.

 

[Quad5Ny]

You should very rarely have to repair permissions. And even then it's not a magic tool; it only fixes file/folder permissions that were listed in a installers BOM (bill of materials).

What Apple is calling file permissions is actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_control_list. Having different permissions set for a file/folder doesn't always break things, so don't worry about warnings when running the permissions repair in Disk Utility.

If you feel the need to, run permissions repair once a month and/or after a software update. (And yes it was pointless all along )


I don't have enough experience with Lion to tell you if its a good idea to have all your apps resume after a restart. But I digress, I'm sure Apple has thoroughly tested auto-resume.

Personally I won't be using it, but then again I was raised on windows, and having all your apps open on windows during boot usually wasn't a good idea.

 

[Draeconis]

Hi,

I have been using Macs since buying a PowerBook back in the early Panther days. I know it's ridiculous, but I've got into an obsessive routine when I start up my computer...

I power up and wait for OS X to load (Snow Leopard, at the moment), initiate and dismiss Dashboard to get it responsive, then open Disk Utility and repair Disk Permissions. I do this every time I start up my computer. I don't have any applications set to open automatically at startup but I then manually open iTunes, Twitter, Mail, Reeder, Safari, iCal and Things before I get to work...

Now, when I upgrade to Lion I quite fancy having all these items open automatically, some of them (iTunes and iCal) in full screen mode...

My question: is there any disadvantage to abandoning my long-held permissions repair routine? Or was it pointless all along? It was from forums like these, and scare stories, that I got into the habit in the first place, by the way. I also used to use the Terminal to run the cron scripts, but somehow managed to break the habit...

Steve.

If I know there's stuff on Software Update, I run this in Terminal

sudo softwareupdate -iav
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly
sudo diskutil repairpermissions /

Which means, in English;

Install all updates, verbosely.
Run Daily, Weekly and Monthly maintenance scripts.
Repair Permissions on root drive.

The brilliant thing about Lion is finally, it actually fixes permissions again. This worked up to Tiger, then in Leopard they broke it.