Repairing permissions

It can't hurt!

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.

Poster rccharles has provided this description of what it all means:

drwxrwxrwx

d = directory

r = read

w = write

x = executeable program

drwxrwxrwx

| | |

| | all other users not in first two types

| |

| group

|

owner

Although it’s immensely popular, repairing permissions is a waste of time unless you have a specific indication of a permission error involving system files, which is rare, or a startup failure. It is not a universal rite of healing for computers. It has traditionally spewed bogus warning messages that mean absolutely nothing.

The built-in help for Disk Utility reads in part:

If you see an alert or a message that says your permissions are set incorrectly, you can correct the disk’s permissions by clicking Repair Disk Permissions.

It’s justifiable, though rarely necessary, to repair permissions after running a third-party software installer, as defective installers have been known to damage the permissions of system files.