Ignore Ownership On This Volume, unchecked, still ignores ownership

Question

Level 1

0 points

Ignore Ownership On This Volume, unchecked, still ignores ownership

I have an external 500 GB Seagate drive connected via Firewire. When I first started using it, I had the option "Ignore ownership on this volume" checked. I then wanted other people to be able to use my computer via fast user switching, but I wanted to restrict access to that drive, so I unchecked that option. I set the permissions to be read/write for me, read-only for staff, and read-only for everyone. I then used the option to "Apply to enclosed items." It took many seconds to complete the operation, but it doesn't appear to have worked. When I look at individual files and folders, the permissions are correct, but when I switch to another user, the files and folders show up as being owned by that user and therefore writeable.

Any ideas?

iMac Core Duo 2GHz, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Feb 12, 2009 3:07 AM

Reply

Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Feb 12, 2009 7:19 AM in response to zoobieboots

how is the drive formatted?

Reply

Answer 2

zoobieboots Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 2:35 PM in response to V.K.

Mac OS Extended (Journaled)

Reply

Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:09 PM in response to zoobieboots

sorry, then I don't know what the problem is. was the drive ever a boot drive or a clone of one? or was it just a data storage drive? I think I've seen when this happened when you do this with a boot cloner.

Reply

Answer 4

kpatten

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:18 PM in response to zoobieboots

You might try using the Terminal command vsdbutil to look at the status of the volume status DB.

Check the status of your root volume:
*vsdbutil -c /*

Check the status of another volume:
*vsdbutil -c /Volumes/myvolname*

Activate on-disk ownership:
*sudo vsdbutil -a /*

Deactivate:
*sudo vsdbutil -d /*

Reinitialize the ownership database to include all mounted HFS+ volumes:
* sudo vsdbutil -i*

I would start with a check, then an activate if it shows on, a deactivate then an activate if off.

If that doesn't work, try the initialize.

Reply

Answer 5

zoobieboots Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:30 PM in response to V.K.

Nope. It has always been a data storage drive. When I got it, I formatted it as as Mac OS Extended with journaling, and started writing files to it. Never used any extra software to put files on it.

Reply

Answer 6

zoobieboots Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:31 PM in response to kpatten

It shows it as active.

# vsdbutil -c /Volumes/500G/
Permissions on '/Volumes/500G/' are enabled.

Reply

Answer 7

kpatten

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:31 PM in response to zoobieboots

Try deactivate, reactivate, check, test.

If that doesn't work try initialize, test.

Reply

Answer 8

zoobieboots Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 12, 2009 3:41 PM in response to kpatten

OK, weird. I noticed while in a root shell (sudo su -) that the files and folders showed up as unknown:unknown so I did

cd /Volumes/500G
chown -R <myuid>:staff *
chown <myuid>:admin .

I also removed all the .DS_Store files, just in case that had something to do with it (although I should have checked to see if the chown by itself fixed it so I could have written a better answer here):

find . -name .DS_Store -exec rm {} \;

I also set the owner/group of these files and folders manually as <myuid>:admin
.Spotlight-V100
.Trashes
.com.apple.timemachine.supported
.fseventsd

and this one as <myuid>:staff:
.TemporaryItems

** Any idea what the proper permissions should be? (I could see an argument for .Trashes being owned by group staff also)

I rebooted the machine to make sure it kept the permissions upon remounting and it did.

I don't know if this is the best solution, but it appears to have worked.

Reply

Answer 9

kpatten

Level 1

0 points

Feb 13, 2009 8:12 AM in response to zoobieboots

It appears the proper behavior for "Ignore ownership" is to display the UID and GID for the active user account.

However, using ' ls -lna as root gives this result:

drwxrwxrwx+ 17 501 20 646 Feb 13 10:29 . drwxrwxrwt@ 6 0 80 204 Feb 13 10:17 .. -rwxrwxrwx@ 1 99 99 6148 Feb 13 10:10 .DS_Store drwxrwxrwx+ 3 99 99 102 Feb 11 15:32 .Spotlight-V100 drwxrwxrwx@ 5 99 99 170 Feb 12 14:44 .TemporaryItems drwxrwxrwx@ 5 99 99 170 Feb 12 16:53 .Trashes -rwxrwxrwx 1 0 99 0 Jan 13 16:00 .com.apple.timemachine.supported drwx------+ 5 99 99 170 Feb 13 05:52 .fseventsd

Not the UID and GID of root, rather the UID and GID for user and group ' _unknown'.

The _unknown owner and group in a root shell appears to be normal operation for a volume with "Ignore ownership" set. From my environment as root with ' ls -la':

-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 _unknown _unknown 6148 Feb 13 10:10 .DS_Store drwxrwxrwx+ 3 _unknown _unknown 102 Feb 11 15:32 .Spotlight-V100 drwxrwxrwx@ 5 _unknown _unknown 170 Feb 12 14:44 .TemporaryItems drwxrwxrwx@ 5 _unknown _unknown 170 Feb 12 16:53 .Trashes -rwxrwxrwx 1 root _unknown 0 Jan 13 16:00 .com.apple.timemachine.supported drwx------+ 5 _unknown _unknown 170 Feb 13 05:52 .fseventsd

With the local administrator user:

drwxrwxrwx+ 17 administrator staff 646 Feb 13 10:29 . drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 Feb 13 10:17 .. -rwxrwxrwx@ 1 administrator staff 6148 Feb 13 10:10 .DS_Store drwxrwxrwx+ 3 administrator staff 102 Feb 11 15:32 .Spotlight-V100 drwxrwxrwx@ 5 administrator staff 170 Feb 12 14:44 .TemporaryItems drwxrwxrwx@ 5 administrator staff 170 Feb 12 16:53 .Trashes -rwxrwxrwx 1 administrator staff 0 Jan 13 16:00 .com.apple.timemachine.supported drwx------+ 5 administrator staff 170 Feb 13 05:52 .fseventsd

With another, non-admin, user:

drwxrwxrwx+ 17 dmisco cosxdef 646 Feb 13 10:29 . drwxrwxrwt@ 6 root admin 204 Feb 13 10:17 .. -rwxrwxrwx@ 1 dmisco cosxdef 6148 Feb 13 10:10 .DS_Store drwxrwxrwx+ 3 dmisco cosxdef 102 Feb 11 15:32 .Spotlight-V100 drwxrwxrwx@ 5 dmisco cosxdef 170 Feb 12 14:44 .TemporaryItems drwxrwxrwx@ 5 dmisco cosxdef 170 Feb 12 16:53 .Trashes -rwxrwxrwx 1 dmisco cosxdef 0 Jan 13 16:00 .com.apple.timemachine.supported drwx------+ 5 dmisco cosxdef 170 Feb 13 05:52 .fseventsd

I have some ACL's set, so ignore the ' +' characters, they are non-standard. The rest is set to default permissions, owner and group.

The work-around you have seems fine, but you may have some problems down the road as it is not the standard "Ignore ownership" configuration.

Reply

Answer 10

zoobieboots Author

Level 1

0 points

Feb 16, 2009 8:52 PM in response to zoobieboots

Cool. Thanks for the permissions list.

Reply

Answer 11

jdelisle

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2009 9:19 AM in response to kpatten

Try using the following - should resolve your _unknown user issue.

hdiutil attach -owners on SOURCE -mountpoint MOUNTPOINT
fsaclctl -p MOUNTPOINT -e

Example:
hdiutil attach -owners on ~/disk.dmb -mountpoint /Volumes/mydisk
fsaclctl -p /Volumes/mydisk -e

Reply

Answer 12

jdelisle

Level 1

0 points

Feb 26, 2009 9:20 AM in response to zoobieboots

See my other post in the thread.

Reply

Quick Links

Ignore Ownership On This Volume, unchecked, still ignores ownership