Why am I always seeing "fetching..." in my sharing and permissions when trying to give certain users access to certain folders? I am trying to get users to connect and its not working. thanks
iMac Pro, macOS 10.15
Barney, I appreciate your trying to help. I noticed you are a "Level 10 with 83,506 points" while I am a "Level 1 with 4 points". I love how that highlights the gap between us in knowing how to solve Mac issues... That being the case, there is hardly a word in your response that I understand. Since my original post on related issue from almost a week ago, I have decided to stick with Big Sur and just keep my older Mac handy for using older CAD software which no longer runs on Catalina nor Big Sur (shame on the CAD company, I know, for being super super slow in keeping their stuff up to date, there is no excuse). However, there still remains a major problem, which I have experienced before, even before upgrading to Big Sur, which I really must resolve, and could use your help. I want to use file sharing so that other employees in my office can access folders and documents on my machine. For whatever reason, however, while those other machines DO see my computer on the network, neither of them can "log in" or connect. What might you suggest I do? I have tried deleting their user names, I established new ones...I changed permissions on folders to those new user names, it is not working. Please help!!! Thank you!
Barney, I appreciate your trying to help. I noticed you are a "Level 10 with 83,506 points" while I am a "Level 1 with 4 points". I love how that highlights the gap between us in knowing how to solve Mac issues... That being the case, there is hardly a word in your response that I understand. Since my original post on related issue from almost a week ago, I have decided to stick with Big Sur and just keep my older Mac handy for using older CAD software which no longer runs on Catalina nor Big Sur (shame on the CAD company, I know, for being super super slow in keeping their stuff up to date, there is no excuse). However, there still remains a major problem, which I have experienced before, even before upgrading to Big Sur, which I really must resolve, and could use your help. I want to use file sharing so that other employees in my office can access folders and documents on my machine. For whatever reason, however, while those other machines DO see my computer on the network, neither of them can "log in" or connect. What might you suggest I do? I have tried deleting their user names, I established new ones...I changed permissions on folders to those new user names, it is not working. Please help!!! Thank you!
That generally means there is an Access Control List (ACL) or POSIX permission set for a user that doesn't exist on that system. The UID doesn't match any of the users.
Custom permissions means you have ACLs set for that item.
First, you should only share files out of the /Users/Shared folder, not from your user's home folder. Nothing particularly wrong, but it is messy due to the permissions set on your home folder.
Second, you likely want a file server which is not the same as file sharing. You can set up your Mac to act as a file server, but it takes some work in the Terminal. File Sharing just lets the others see the files. They cannot edit them without making a copy.
Third, you should create Sharing Only users for the others in the office unless they need an account on your Mac (because they use that Mac). File Sharing on macOS is essentially logging into the Mac remotely. If they have an account on that Mac, they will have the same access they would have if they sat down at the Mac and logged into their account.
1) Start by creating a top-level folder inside /Users/Shared/. Add any files and subfolders you want to share into that folder, too.
3) Create your users in Users & Groups selecting Sharing Only from the popup menu.
Create a Group and add all of the office users to the group (same as creating a user, but select Group from the popup menu).
2) Here is the ACL you need to add to the top-level folder you created inside Shared. You will need to modify it to change <directory_name> and change the <groupName> to whatever you created.
chmod -R +a "group:<groupName> allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" "/Users/Shared/<directory_name>/"
Copy it into TextEdit and change those items. Then copy and paste into a Terminal window, hit return.
That access control entry (ACE) gives everyone in the group the ability to edit files and folders created by others in the group. Any folders added will inherit the ACE, thus all subfolders created will get the ACE. The -R tells it to write the ACE to all of the contents of the folder including subfolders.
Thanks. Indeed I was essentially using my imac pro as a server, though just giving permission for others to access some folders and not others. it wasnt a perfect system but when i gave read/write permissions, (not just "read only", it seemed to work fine (when my imac pro was running mojave and they were running mojave and catalina). Others in my office were able to open and change files, and save them. The annoying part was that as folks were doing this, i ended up repeatedly having to update permissons to give others access because the last person to save the file now had ownership of it (I think that is the messiness you were referring to).
Are you saying I am dragging/dropping the folders/files i want to share out of documents folder and into the shared folder?
I will give this all a shot, but im still concerned about the basic problem of these other machines actually connecting to my computer. i set up the users, gave them access...but they are not able to connect...
Are you saying I am dragging/dropping the folders/files i want to share out of documents folder and into the shared folder?
Yes.
i set up the users, gave them access...but they are not able to connect...
In File Sharing, Options, you must share out over SMB. You cannot share out an APFS drive via AFP.
Sharing & Permissions always "fetching..."?