Big Sur 11.2 - File/Folder Permissions

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Level 1

9 points

Big Sur 11.2 - File/Folder Permissions

Hi All

I'm struggling to understand this. Folders/Files have permissions assigned, users and groups in 3 categories can be granted various access rights (read+write - read only - no access etc...), whilst I understand the rights themselves I'm struggling with the user groups

Staff
Everybody

Could somebody explain what the difference between these 2 groups is, specifically is:

'Everybody' just users on the local intranet (users on my local hub/switch)?

or

Does this imply any access by users on the internet generally, i.e remote access from outside of the local network?

iMac 27″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Feb 9, 2021 12:10 PM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,066 points

Feb 9, 2021 8:09 PM in response to ANBody66

First, everyone is not a group. In the POSIX permissions, there is user, group, and others. An item in the file system can be assigned read write and execute to each of those entity user group and others.

Apple decided to rename others to everyone which makes it much more confusing. Others are all users on that machine that are not the user, and not a member of the group (if there is one).

There are near 100 users in macOS. Users may be entities created for the purpose of owning a process such that they have very limited privileges.

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Answer 2

ANBody66 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 10, 2021 2:33 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks Barney, this is beginning to make (some) sense.

To recap 'others' (everyone in Apple speak) can be processes that the MacOS itself has created to run/do stuff and/or other actual real people who have a user account and log-in credentials on the iMac?

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Answer 3

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,066 points

Feb 10, 2021 5:29 AM in response to ANBody66

Yes.

I forgot to talk about Staff. That is just a group Apple created for all login accounts on the Mac. It’s all of the people who have user accounts on the Mac.

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Answer 4

ANBody66 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 10, 2021 7:45 AM in response to Barney-15E

Very many thanks Barney.

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Big Sur 11.2 - File/Folder Permissions

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