Permissions

[mickibob]

When I open Disc Utilities I find four boxes - Verify Disk Permissions / Repair Disk Permissions / Verify Disk and Repair Disk.

Can someone explain in layman's terms what each of these are and how, when and if they should be used? I'm using 10.6.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

OS X uses a Unix permission scheme where files are owned by certain accounts, some are system, others are users. Additionally, files have specific flags indicating if they are accessible by everyone or only by a privileged few.

As time goes on and you install a bunch of apps, these permissions (especially on system files) get messed up. In a lot of cases, these changes are usually fine and don't interfere with your system use, but eventually you'll have issues.

When you have those issues, you run the Verify/Repair disk permissions combo to get back to a good state.

The Verify and Repair disk check the integrity of your HDD and fix issues. This needs to be run even less frequently than the permissions one..

 

[harryb2448]

And to run Repair Disk you have to be booted from a source other than the internal drive such as the install DVD, or for later operating systems via Recovery mode.

 

[mickibob]

Raz0rEdge - you say that eventually you have issues. How might this issues show up iin day to dray use of the computer?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Raz0rEdge - you say that eventually you have issues. How might this issues show up iin day to dray use of the computer?

A lot of files that get affected don't interfere in your day to day activity and would only be found through a permissions check..

I, for one, have not run either of those checks on my rMBP since I got it nearly a year and half ago and its been working fine..

I might do a Onyx run at some point when I'm not working on it..