How do I find the owner of a folder/file and change it.

Question

How do I find the owner of a folder/file and change it.

Photoshop will not install license correctly and Adobe is not being much help. The problem seems to be that the Library/preferences/FLEXnet Publisher folder is locked and the Photoshop installer can not write to it. The get info box for the folder says I can read only even though I'm logged in in my admin account and the list at the bottom shows I have read and write. I'm guessing that it may be a folder owner problem (caused by FileMaker since I can see it's data file in there and it is the only one). So can anyone give me terminal commands I can copy and paste into Terminal that will 1) tell me who the current owner is and 2) Change the owner to my admin account to get write permission?

MacBookPro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Mar 3, 2010 2:31 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 3, 2010 2:43 PM in response to retiredatlast

When working in the terminal window, I often use the "ls -Flags" command to get a detailed listing of the files in the current folder. That would tell you who the owner is, what member group the file is associated with, and other details. Once you know who owns the folder, and what it's read/write/execute permissions are set to, you can use the "chmod" and "chown" commands to change the attributes, or owner of the file (assuming you have permissions to the file/folder)

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Answer 2

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Mar 3, 2010 2:49 PM in response to retiredatlast

Select the item and Press COMMAND-I to open the Get Info window. In the Ownership and Permissions section at the bottom click on the lock icon to authenticate. You can then edit the Owner and Group permissions.

On my system they are:

Owner=system with r/w
Group=admin with r/w
Everyone with r/w

Or, the Terminal commands would be:

sudo chown root:admin /Library/Preferences/"FLEXnet Publisher"
killall Finder

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Answer 3

Mar 3, 2010 3:36 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for the responses - In the Get Info box at the bottom in Sharing and Permissions , just above the list of users it says "You can only read" yet I'm specifically listed in the users box with read and Write privilege. I can NOT move or rename the folder. Using the ls command the "Flexnet Publisher" folder is root:admin and the Flexnet folder in it is tom:admin. (My admin level login is tom) I think maybe I'm in over my head here. Better just keep bugging Adobe.

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Answer 4

Kappy

Level 10

362,007 points

Mar 3, 2010 4:00 PM in response to retiredatlast

The normal privileges are root:admin. You alone are neither, although you belong to the admin group. Apparently access to the folder must be at that level which is why you cannot access the folder.

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Answer 5

Mar 3, 2010 4:35 PM in response to Kappy

Tried the sudo chown command on both folder and get info now says I have custom access. I to copy a simple text file into the FLEXnet folder but was not allowed - it said FLEXnet can not be modified. But Get Info does not show it is locked.

would chflags nouchg /library/preferences/'felxnet publisher'/flexnet
fix that?

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Answer 6

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Mar 3, 2010 6:08 PM in response to retiredatlast

please run this in terminal and post the results


ls -ladeO@ /library/preferences/"felxnet publisher"/flexnet

this will list the current permissions, ACLs and flags on that folder.

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Answer 7

Mar 3, 2010 6:54 PM in response to V.K.

V.K. - here are the results

drwxrwxrwx@ 3 tom admin - 102 Dec 3 2008 /library/preferences/flexnet publisher/flexnet
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot 50
com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot 50
0: group:everyone deny add file,delete,add_subdirectory,deletechild,writeattr,writeextattr,chown
1: user:tom allow list,add file,search,add_subdirectory,deletechild,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

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Answer 8

V.K.

Level 9

56,192 points

Mar 3, 2010 7:16 PM in response to retiredatlast

ok. it has some deny delete ACLs and some Time machine created extended attributes. did you by any chance copy this folder from a TM backup via finder?! that would be the only explanation I can think of for presence of those things. you should NEVER copy or do anything with TM backups from finder. TM backups should be accessed via TM interface ONLY. please run the following terminal command


chmod -RN "/library/preferences/flexnet publisher/flexnet"

then see if your problems with this folder go away.

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Answer 9

Mar 3, 2010 7:53 PM in response to V.K.

Thank you very much - that solved it.

This is a new (~5 week old) uni-body MacBook Pro. When I started it up the first time I migrated from a TimeMachine back up since the previous MacBook was no long in my possession. Photoshop had NOT been installed on previous MacBook. I have not copied anything from TimeMachine with finder and I will remember your warning.

Thanks again.

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