What/who are "_installer" and wheel? trustable part of apple system?

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Level 1

7 points

What/who are "_installer" and wheel? trustable part of apple system?

There are 2 folders in the folder 'Receipts' (in the HD 'Library' ) whose procedence I wonder of. In the permission, it's written: _installer => read and write; wheel => read only; everyone => read only. My question is:

Who is "installer" ? and "wheel" ?

Well, I can find 'wheel' elsewhere, but "_installer " sounds much strange to me. Is it ok? Should I keep them there or not. The folders are the blue ones: booms and db, with lots of pckg inside ?

By the way, concerning the other 'packages' in there, what's batchresize? exifaudiocontrol ?

I also found in the HD Library >

2) caches > com.apple.intlDataCache.le.4294967294 (and another one similar :.sbdl ) - whose authorizatio n permission is even weirderer It says: "nobody" - with permission to read and write and the usual everybody: with "no permission at all; nothing/nobody else (system? wheel? Admnistrator?) Does it mean a prblm? should I securely erase it ?

3) I found the folder "file system" empty. Is it ok ?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8)

Posted on Mar 26, 2013 3:45 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 26, 2013 3:57 AM in response to Socorro-Mac

Your OS X is full of thousands of files and folders with things like this. Many are invisible. Inexperienced users should not remove anything because it could stop something working.

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Answer 2

Mar 26, 2013 4:11 AM in response to Socorro-Mac

The user groups you are finding are special groups reserved for those needing 'root' access, the owner of everything on a Unix-based computer system. Members of the wheel group are allowed to carry out most functions that are reserved to root. The installer group has permissions necessary to conduct software and operating system installation, privliges that go beyond a standard user as they may need to touch files in protected areas, such as system-level files.

Information is cached that helps the operating system perform tasks quickly, and by no means should be removed, even if you have permission level to do so.

There are many files and folders, aka directories, in Unix systems that appear to be empty. They, themselves, may be but they link to other files and folders where the actual material resides. If in the full permission fields you see an 's' for example, that is a soft link to another location where the actual data resides.

Mac OS X is a Unix-based operting system. The kernal, Darwin, is the actual command-level operating system and is based on the FreeBSD Unix system, Berkley Software Development.

Bottom-line, please DO explore and learn more about the makeup of your Mac OS X system, but DO NOT remove any files or folders without first learning their use. You can do serious damage to the system by doing that.

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Answer 3

Socorro-Mac Author

Level 1

7 points

Apr 1, 2013 8:11 AM in response to Ralph Landry1

Thank you Ralph!

I'm trying to learn... and you certainly helped me a lot. But what about that "nobody" - you two (Ralph and Neville) did NOT mention it. It's the first time I see permission given to "nobody" + no one at all.

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Answer 4

WZZZ

Level 6

13,220 points

Apr 1, 2013 8:27 AM in response to Socorro-Mac

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2963

http://www.macworld.com/article/1049831/tcopermissions.html

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Answer 5

Apr 1, 2013 8:28 AM in response to Socorro-Mac

Nobody really excludes everyone except root...that means everyone in the wheel group that can share privliges with root but not be root. If you can su to root, or login as root you can still go to those places since root owns everything on the system and cannot be denied any action.

One of the reasons Apple has disabled root as an available user, unless you take specific steps to enable root. If you do that you need to be aware of the power root has...as root you can literally erase the entire operating system without the system telling you NO DON'T DO THAT...so if you enable root please be extremely careful about what you do and be sure you understand all of the power you have.

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