christopher rigby1
Level 4 (2,146 points)

Q: Repair Permissions differences between Onyx and Disk Utility

If I repair permissions, there are a large number of 'repaired permissions' if I switch between using Onyx (10.6) and Disk Utility. Most of them are in

  • System / Library / CoreServices
  • System / Library / Java
  • System / Library / Frameworks

 

Why should this be? It makes me think that either Onyx or Disk Utility is doing it wrong. If I had to back which one it is, I'd have to say Onyx is the likeliest suspect. In other words should I avoid using Onyx to repair permissions and just use DU in future?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Core2Duo 2.1GHz 20" 3GB RAM 250GB

Posted on Jan 20, 2013 9:12 AM

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christopher rigby1

Q: Repair Permissions differences between Onyx and Disk Utility

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  • by Klaus1,Helpful

    Klaus1 Klaus1 Jan 20, 2013 9:41 AM in response to christopher rigby1
    Level 8 (48,918 points)
    Jan 20, 2013 9:41 AM in response to christopher rigby1

    should I avoid using Onyx to repair permissions and just use DU in future?

    Probably, but some permission results are always and repetitively wrong:

     

    As long as the report ends up with 'Permissions repair complete' then, as far as permissions go, you are fine. You can ignore the various statements in the report:

     

    Permissions you can ignore on 10.5 onwards:

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

     

    Using 'should be -rw-r--r-- , they are lrw-r--r--' as an example, you will see the that the permissions are not changed, but the | indicates a different location. This is because an update to Leopard onwards changed the location of a number of system components.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ Jan 20, 2013 9:48 AM in response to christopher rigby1
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 20, 2013 9:48 AM in response to christopher rigby1

    This is a surprising result. Not the repeat repairs, but that Onyx and DU show any differences. I would have thought Onyx was simply using the native DU. Maybe they're looking at different receipts. I wlll have to try this myself.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ Jan 20, 2013 10:33 AM in response to WZZZ
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 20, 2013 10:33 AM in response to WZZZ

    I don't have the patience to compare the two line by line, since there are so many. But it looks like they are both the same--all the usual Java ones--with the exception of one that Onyx found and repaired for the group in globalpreferences.plist in /private/var. But since I ran Onyx first, I don't know if DU would have come up with it also. That one is not showing in DU, but that might be because Onyx got to it first, it's genuine and Onyx repaired it. Or the Onyx error for that one might have been spurious.

  • by christopher rigby1,

    christopher rigby1 christopher rigby1 Jan 20, 2013 10:32 AM in response to WZZZ
    Level 4 (2,146 points)
    Jan 20, 2013 10:32 AM in response to WZZZ

    I think in the light of Klaus1's reply, that it may not be a discrepancy between Onyx and DU after all - I may have alternated the two, seen the big differences, and assumed that one of the utilities was wrong. But it seems if I ran one of the utilities consecutively, it looks like I would still see the differences.

  • by WZZZ,Helpful

    WZZZ WZZZ Jan 20, 2013 10:35 AM in response to christopher rigby1
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 20, 2013 10:35 AM in response to christopher rigby1

    Well, running either one consecutively, you shouldn't see any differences, except if there were any genuine repairs from one to the next. I know that all the Java ones will always be there, or at least until a new Java update, if there ever is one.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ Jan 20, 2013 11:42 AM in response to WZZZ
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 20, 2013 11:42 AM in response to WZZZ

    This is interesting. After running Onyx Permissions repair, which had turned up Group differs on"private/var/root/Library/GlobalPreferences.plist", should be 0̷, group is 20, my TextEdit documents are no longer showing as folders, but as, well, documents. Maybe Onyx found something DU didn't. Used to show up with the generic folder the way videos does in the screenshot. New one is at right.

     

    Screen shot 2013-01-20 at 2.35.26 PM.png

     

    Don't know why this would have made any difference, since I'm the owner with full R&W.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ Jan 20, 2013 12:55 PM in response to WZZZ
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    Jan 20, 2013 12:55 PM in response to WZZZ

    Forget that last post. TextEdit documents have always looked like that.