Permission on /tmp folder

Question

Level 1

9 points

Permission on /tmp folder

I have a new MacPro running 10.5.7. After installing a program called Epocrates which has an auto-update feature, my console is filled with log messages from cron into mail in the Unix environment as follows:

Subject: Cron <xxx@xxx> /Users/xxxx/Applications/Epocrates\ AutoUpdate/cronEpocratesConduitReplacement > /Users/xxxx/Applications/Epocrates\ AutoUpdate/EpocratesLogConduitReplacement_Cron.txt
X-Cron-Env: <SHELL=/bin/sh>
X-Cron-Env: <PATH=/usr/bin:/bin>
X-Cron-Env: <LOGNAME=xxxxx>
X-Cron-Env: <USER=xxxxx>
X-Cron-Env: <HOME=/Users/xxxxx>
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2009 14:40:01 -0400 (EDT)

cat: /tmp/runagentMac.out: No such file or directory

(I deleted the username with xxx in the posted message)

/tmp is a link to /private/tmp

lrwxr-xr-x@ 1 root admin 11 Feb 7 14:29 tmp -> private/tmp
and private/tmp is rwx for owner, group, and world

The company tells me to change the permissions of /tmp using chmod as follows:

chmod 777 /tmp

After changing to root using su, I do this, and the permissions do not change. Attempting to change just the write privileges also fails. No error message, no alerts, it just doesn't change.

Disk utilities reports:

6/2/09 11:37:56 AM Disk Utility[25849] Permissions differ on "private/tmp", should be drwxrwxrwt , they are drwxrwxrwx .

But repairing permissions does not fix the problem.

Is there some new protection on the /tmp directory?

MacPro 2x2.26 Quad Intel, Mac OS X (10.5.7)

Posted on Jun 2, 2009 8:48 AM

Reply

Answer 1

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jun 2, 2009 8:58 AM in response to Alesse

/tmp is a symbolic link to /private/tmp and you should change permissions on that directly

sudo chmod 777 /private/tmp
sudo chmod +t /private/tmp

Message was edited by: V.K.

Reply

Answer 2

Alesse Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 2, 2009 11:36 AM in response to V.K.

Thanks. I did a you suggested and there is still no change. The permission were already:

varid:/ xxx$ cd private/
varid:private xxxx$ ls -al
total 0
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root wheel 204 Feb 7 14:55 .
drwxrwxr-t 36 root admin 1292 Jun 2 13:26 ..
drwxr-xr-x 95 root wheel 3230 Jun 1 17:15 etc
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 68 Nov 3 2008 tftpboot
drwxrwxrwt 24 root wheel 816 Jun 2 13:27 tmp
drwxr-xr-x@ 25 root wheel 850 Feb 7 14:55 var

Doing the 2 chmod commands returned my to the original state and did not affect the tmp link or access to the folder.

Any suggestions?

Reply

Answer 3

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jun 2, 2009 2:23 PM in response to Alesse

the permissions on the symbolic link itself are not important. the permissions on /private/tmp are what's important and they appear to be correct now based on the output of that terminal command. what exactly is the problem now? could you clarify please?

Reply

Answer 4

Alesse Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 2, 2009 4:43 PM in response to V.K.

Certainly. The error message at the top of the post references a cron job that cannot completed. The last line of the error message suggests that either the file runagentMac.out in the directory tmp cannot be created or does not exist.

cat: /tmp/runagentMac.out: No such file or directory

Technical support from Epocrates told me to change the permissions of the /tmp dir, however, I was unable to do this as detailed in the lower half of the post. Using chmod on the link did not change the privileges and as you note, the linked target has the correct permissions. The file /tmp/runagentMac.out exists and I changed the permissions of that file to 777 as well, and the cron job continue to fail and the error messages continue to accumulate in my log files every 20 seconds or so.

Not sure why the cron job continues to fail or why using chmod on the symbolic link did not change the permissions of the link.

Reply

Answer 5

dbsneddon

Level 4

1,542 points

Jun 2, 2009 6:24 PM in response to Alesse

Please consider that your attempt to change protection on the
/tmp directory as instructed and that you are apparently seeing
no change after the command may indicate that the original
protection and what you are trying to change it to are in fact
the same? Therefore the source of the problem is likely to be
found elsewhere.

Dave

Reply

Answer 6

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Jun 3, 2009 6:32 AM in response to Alesse

you need a -h switch in chmod to change permissions on a symbolic link itself. but as I said, those permissions are completely irrelevant and there is no need to do that. they only matter when you want to delete or rename the link itself. all other operations use permissions on the object the link points to. also, in your case the permissions on both the link /tmp and the actual directory /private/tmp are correct. I've got the same on all my systems. whatever is going on is not a problem with permissions on those folders but with something else. I suggest you contact Epocrates again.

Reply

Answer 7

Alesse Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 3, 2009 2:26 PM in response to V.K.

Thanks very much. I agree with both of the above posts and thanks for the -h tip on the link. I will await the Epocrates reply and post the answer if it ever comes.

Thanks again

Reply