-All
After a week of fighting with a Leopard install on my machine-of-record, I've made a few discoveries that you should know about.
This may affect you (because it did me) if you moved from Tiger to Leopard using the methods:
-Archive and Install
-Erase and Install, with migrating users, manual install apps
-Half Manual: Erase and Install, boot, migrate users using Migration Assistant from backup, manual install apps
-Full Manual: Erase and Install, boot, create users, drag/drop home contents from backup, manual install apps
Possible Symptoms you may be encountering:
-iTunes won't update Address Book, Calendars to iPod/iPhone despite no errors
-using tools like "Cronosync" error out due to file permissions issues - but don't seem to make sense.
-.dmg's do not mount
-when you try to trash something in your home folder, it asks for your administrator's password - every time
-if you run Repair Permissions, you see a loooot of "ACL Found, but not expected"'s
-Clincher:in a file "Get Info" you see the permissions listed in the order:
"Everyone:Custom"
"Owner:you"
"xxx:xxx"
... The key here is to look for that "Everyone:Custom" at the top of the list.
And no amount of "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Items" helps, sure, the folders inherit the right permissions, but the files within, still have that "Everyone:Custom" at the top of the list.
What may be happening:
With Leopard, something called ACL's have been allowed to be applied to each file and folders in a much wider sense than they were in Tiger. These Access Control Lists allow special treatment of permissions, but I'll let you research that on your own (I can't find my links right now). Basically that "Everyone:Custom" is an ACL, and ACLs override all standard UNIX file permissions that may also be attached to that file. This means that you may have Owner, Group, Other set exactly the way you want it, but that means nothing with that pesky "Everyone:Custom" ACL at the top.
As you may know, Repair Permissions only works on Apple-Installer'ed applications and files. But it may be useful for examination of these issues.
One way to solve:
There are a lot of reason NOT to do this, for example if you have Aperture loaded. However, if you still have a new migration with your apps not loaded yet, this is a bit less risky.
This will remove any ACLs from the folder you naviget to using "cd/", and what follows is affecting only your home folder and contents...
Launch Terminal
Navigate to your home folder using "cd/ HOMEFOLDERNAME" (HOMEFOLDERNAME being your account short name)
enter (or copy/paste this): "chmod -R -N ~"
enter
enter administrator password
enter
That should remove the ACLs from everything in your home folder - including preference files that were getting foobed by the ACL.
Other options are:
"chmod -R -N ~ ." which means "all ACLs removal from this point down"
"sudo chmod -R -N ~ ." which means "all ACLs removal from this point down using root permissions" (please don't use this unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing)
If you have ACLs in your apps folder, that last on is what you'd use. But again, watch out! It's a root command!
Did this magically fix all of your problems, like it did me?
After a week of fighting with a Leopard install on my machine-of-record, I've made a few discoveries that you should know about.
This may affect you (because it did me) if you moved from Tiger to Leopard using the methods:
-Archive and Install
-Erase and Install, with migrating users, manual install apps
-Half Manual: Erase and Install, boot, migrate users using Migration Assistant from backup, manual install apps
-Full Manual: Erase and Install, boot, create users, drag/drop home contents from backup, manual install apps
Possible Symptoms you may be encountering:
-iTunes won't update Address Book, Calendars to iPod/iPhone despite no errors
-using tools like "Cronosync" error out due to file permissions issues - but don't seem to make sense.
-.dmg's do not mount
-when you try to trash something in your home folder, it asks for your administrator's password - every time
-if you run Repair Permissions, you see a loooot of "ACL Found, but not expected"'s
-Clincher:in a file "Get Info" you see the permissions listed in the order:
"Everyone:Custom"
"Owner:you"
"xxx:xxx"
... The key here is to look for that "Everyone:Custom" at the top of the list.
And no amount of "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Items" helps, sure, the folders inherit the right permissions, but the files within, still have that "Everyone:Custom" at the top of the list.
What may be happening:
With Leopard, something called ACL's have been allowed to be applied to each file and folders in a much wider sense than they were in Tiger. These Access Control Lists allow special treatment of permissions, but I'll let you research that on your own (I can't find my links right now). Basically that "Everyone:Custom" is an ACL, and ACLs override all standard UNIX file permissions that may also be attached to that file. This means that you may have Owner, Group, Other set exactly the way you want it, but that means nothing with that pesky "Everyone:Custom" ACL at the top.
As you may know, Repair Permissions only works on Apple-Installer'ed applications and files. But it may be useful for examination of these issues.
One way to solve:
There are a lot of reason NOT to do this, for example if you have Aperture loaded. However, if you still have a new migration with your apps not loaded yet, this is a bit less risky.
This will remove any ACLs from the folder you naviget to using "cd/", and what follows is affecting only your home folder and contents...
Launch Terminal
Navigate to your home folder using "cd/ HOMEFOLDERNAME" (HOMEFOLDERNAME being your account short name)
enter (or copy/paste this): "chmod -R -N ~"
enter
enter administrator password
enter
That should remove the ACLs from everything in your home folder - including preference files that were getting foobed by the ACL.
Other options are:
"chmod -R -N ~ ." which means "all ACLs removal from this point down"
"sudo chmod -R -N ~ ." which means "all ACLs removal from this point down using root permissions" (please don't use this unless you know EXACTLY what you are doing)
If you have ACLs in your apps folder, that last on is what you'd use. But again, watch out! It's a root command!
Did this magically fix all of your problems, like it did me?