Changing ownership and group settings

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Level 1

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Changing ownership and group settings

I made a back up of my OS X on an external LaCie drive and the owner was changed on my iBook System Preferences to System (the group is Wheel). I went to System Preferences and changed the owner to Admin (does the group need to be admin?) but the lock does not appear in System Preferences. Is there more I need to do? Do I need to change the owner on all applications to Admin?

I was reviewing previous post and found this but not sure if it applies to my situation. Any help would appreciated.

Mike
--------------------------
May I butt in Michael?

Soliel,

First, click on the icon (on your Desktop) for this external drive (or any one of the "partitions," if it is partitioned into multiple "volumes" that mount individually on your Desktop), then press
b Apple-I
to open a Getinfo window for it.

In this window, click on "Details" in the "Ownership and Permissions" section. Look for the button that reads "Ignore ownership on this volume" and make sure that it is not checked. If there are multiple "volumes," do this for each one.

Next, open
b /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.
At the prompt copy and paste this text into the Terminal window:

sudo chown -R `id -u`:`id -g`

Now, type a trailing space after the text you pasted in. Make sure that you type at least one (it won't matter if you type more, as long as there is at least one). Next, drag the icon of the external disk (or "partition") from your Desktop to the Terminal window. As Michael has said earlier, this will automatically fill in the "full path" to that disk (or partition). The results should look something like this:

sudo chown -R `id -u`:`id -g` /Volumes/some diskname

Finally, press <RETURN>. You will be asked for your admin password (you must be an admin user to use these instructions). Enter your admin password (it will not be echoed, and you will see no indication that you have typed anything), then again press <RETURN>. When you return to the prompt, quit Terminal.

This should fix it up, unless there is more wrong with it. We can cross that bridge if and when we come to it.

Scott

p.s. Oops, after you have followed these instructions, you must restart your Finder. Either log out and back in again, or press
b Option-Apple-Esc
and choose "Relaunch Finder." -s

iBook G4, 1.42 GHz PowerPC, SuperDrive, Mac OS X (10.4.10), 60G Hard Drive, 1G RAM, FW 320GB External Drive

Posted on Jul 15, 2007 3:21 PM

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Answer 1

baltwo

Level 9

62,386 points

Jul 15, 2007 3:31 PM in response to mschi

On my machine, SysPrefs is owned by system, group wheel. How did you make the backup? Most backup/cloning apps I'm familiar with never touch the source, so I'm confused about your statement.

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Answer 2

Jul 15, 2007 3:36 PM in response to mschi

mschi

I went to System Preferences and changed the owner to Admin

Wrong! The owner and group should be system and wheel.

To get things back as they should be, run Disk Utility, select your backup volume and then Repair Permissions, which will put back ownership as it should be.

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Answer 3

mschi Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 15, 2007 6:35 PM in response to Michael Conniff

OK I repaired the permissions (a number of permissions were corrected). However the lock icon in system preferences still is not there? It was there before... Ownership and Permission show Read Only? Is this correct.

I beleive this all started when I backed up my OS X on my LaCie drive using the EMC Retrospect Express 6.1 CD that came with the drive. I partitioned the drive in two sections. After reviewing the threads, I found out the the Ignore Ownership was checked so I re-partitioned the external drive.

Mike

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Answer 4

Jul 16, 2007 5:30 AM in response to mschi

mschi

I partitioned the drive in two sections. After reviewing the threads, I found out the the Ignore Ownership was checked so I re-partitioned the external drive.

OK, I think we'll need to resort to Terminal to find out exactly what you've done. Make sure the LaCie is plugged in and switched on.

Open the Terminal (from /Applications/Utilities) and copy and paste the following into the Terminal window, one line at a time, with a return after each line:

ls -l /Volumes/
diskutil list
diskutil info disk1s9

Copy and paste all of the output (include your commands) and post it here. You will probably need to scroll the Terminal window back to capture all the output. (I've had to guess volume identifiers for the last command; if I'm wrong we'll need another command or two.)

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Answer 5

mschi Author

Level 1

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Jul 16, 2007 9:03 PM in response to Michael Conniff

Info below. Thanks for the help Mike!

mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ ls -l /Volumes/
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jul 15 16:28 Macintosh HD -> /
mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: Apple partitionscheme *55.9 GB disk0
1: Apple partitionmap 31.5 KB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 55.8 GB disk0s3
mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ diskutil info disk1s9
Disk Utility Tool
Usage: diskutil [list|information|info] [Mount Point|Disk Identifier
|Device Node]
Display partition or disk information. Root access is not required.
mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$

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Answer 6

Jul 17, 2007 5:01 AM in response to mschi

mschi

I did say

Make sure the LaCie is plugged in and switched on.

Did you do that? The disk isn't mounted, whichever way.

I would have been expecting something along the lines of (heavily edited) …
<pre>

$ ls -l /Volumes/
…
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jul 12 01:17 OSX_4 -> /
drwxrwxr-t 33 root admin 1224 Jun 12 18:29 OSX48
$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
…
/dev/disk1
#: type name size identifier
0: Applepartitionscheme *55.9 GB disk1
…
9: Apple_HFS OSX48 19.0 GB disk1s9
…
$ diskutil info disk1s9
Device Node: /dev/disk1s9
…
Owners: Enabled
Partition Type: Apple_HFS
Bootable: Is bootable
…

</pre>I was interested in all the information, but in particular the "Owners: Enabled" bit.

If the Lacie was plugged in and switched on, something else is amiss. Check this article: FireWire Hard Disk Does Not Appear in Finder If Connected to Computer Before AC Power and see if it applies.

Otherwise boot from your Install Disc and choose Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Now see if your Lacie shows up in the left column. If it does you can select the disk, or the volume below and use the "Info" button to find out whether Owners are enabled, and other interesting stuff. If your disk does not show up here, and you have checked the cables and power to the disk, there may be something wrong with the hardware.

Edit: check this KB article out as well: What to do if your computer won't recognize a FireWire device.

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Answer 7

mschi Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 17, 2007 5:09 PM in response to Michael Conniff

Sorry Mike, my mistake the LaCie was not plugged in. Here is the info below. I did the diskutil info on disk1s3 which is the back up partition (based on your output info). Let me know if I need to run this on another disk. Thanks again.

mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ ls -l /Volumes/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x 4 admin staff 238 Jul 15 17:02 Files
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jul 15 16:28 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxr-xr-x 4 admin staff 238 Jul 15 17:02 System Back up
mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: type name size identifier
0: Apple partitionscheme *55.9 GB disk0
1: Apple partitionmap 31.5 KB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 55.8 GB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: type name size identifier
0: Apple partitionscheme *298.1 GB disk1
1: Apple partitionmap 31.5 KB disk1s1
2: Apple_HFS System Back up 60.8 GB disk1s3
3: Apple_HFS Files 237.1 GB disk1s5
mike-schillers-ibook-g4:~ admin$ diskutil info disk1s3
Device Node: /dev/disk1s3
Device Identifier: disk1s3
Mount Point: /Volumes/System Back up
Volume Name: System Back up

File System: Journaled HFS+
Journal size 8192 k at offset 0x1e9000
Owners: Enabled
Partition Type: Apple_HFS
Bootable: Is bootable
Media Type: Generic
Protocol: FireWire
SMART Status: Not Supported
UUID: 8C39D505-4C4A-32DD-8A31-2AF161702CBC

Total Size: 60.8 GB
Free Space: 60.7 GB

Read Only: No
Ejectable: Yes

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Answer 8

Jul 17, 2007 5:16 PM in response to Michael Conniff

The Disk Utility will not repair permissions on the backup volume.

You should select the backup volume and "Get Info" in the Finder. Make sure that "Ignore ownership on this volume" is NOT checked.

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Answer 9

mschi Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 17, 2007 6:02 PM in response to Etidorhpa

After reading various threads on this subject I re-partitioned my external drive and unchecked the Ignore Ownership box.
The problem started when I made my first copy of my hard drive. The Ignore Ownership box was checked and I noticed that the backup was changing the owner. When the backup completed there was an error log created for one item:
cron.pid

I then noticed that the lock icon on my System Preference was missing which started my intitial search of the threads on system backups and led to this thread.

Mike

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Answer 10

mschi Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 17, 2007 7:09 PM in response to Michael Conniff

Mike, should the owner/group be set to admin/staff for the Retrospect application?
drwxrwxrwx 5 admin staff 170 Jul 11 20:42 Retrospect 6.1

What is a good book on the UNIX aspects of a Mac? I use UNIX at work to an extent but would like to gain additional knowledge on how to apply it to a Mac.

Thanks.

Mike

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Answer 11

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Jul 17, 2007 8:39 PM in response to mschi

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Answer 12

Jul 17, 2007 10:25 PM in response to mschi

At the risk of sounding harsh, I would recommend that you read the "Apple Software Restore" manual, which you can print a copy of by typing:

man -t asr | lpr

into the Terminal application. You can follow the long or short directions, but as long as you pay attention to the manual page, you will get a (free) backup of your hard drive. If it is all above your head, come back here and I will try to explain in more detail where you have gone astray.

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Answer 13

Jul 18, 2007 4:24 AM in response to Etidorhpa

The Disk Utility will not repair permissions on the backup volume.

I beg to differ. Repair Permissions will work on any volume that has Mac OS X on it.

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Answer 14

Jul 18, 2007 4:38 AM in response to mschi

Mike

That's better, it shows "System Backup" as bootable, and with ownership enabled. But:

Total Size: 60.8 GB
Free Space: 60.7 GB

Does this mean it is empty? Copy and paste this into the Terminal window,

sudo du -h -d 1 /Volumes

Press return and you will be prompted for your password. This is not echoed for security reasons: just type it and press return.

All these posts are getting confusing: I'm not sure it you've tried backing up again since my last post or not, so please say what the latest status is, and what now appears to be wrong.

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Answer 15

mschi Author

Level 1

0 points

Jul 18, 2007 7:49 AM in response to Michael Conniff

Mike,
I have deleted the intitial backup and unselected the Ignore Ownership option on the 2 LaCie partitions (Files and System Backup).

My main concern is that Owner settings on my iBook applications have been changed. The reason for this is the lock icon in the lower left of the System Preferences window is no longer there. I wanted to have my Desktop pictures change but the setting is greyed out and I am unable to 'unlock' the System Preferences to access this feature. Additionally, when the backup completed I received a cron.pid error.

Whatever advice/direction you could provide to me to verify my application Owner settings are OK, how to get control of the System Preferences would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Mike

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