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How to restore ~/Public/Drop Box

My daughter has deleted her OS X 10.9 ~/Public/Drop Box folder. I used to drop some files there so she could update her MacBook.


How can I restore the Drop Box folder with those special permissions?

I tried to copy the folder from a Carbon Copy Cloner backup but it didn't work (Drop Boxed TextWrangler prefs files had weird permissions that made TextWrangler to hang so I reverted to login as my daughter to transfer the prefs files).

So I can't get a new Drop Box folder to behave as it used to do. Disabling/enabling Guest login in users & groups does not seem to reset the old permissions exactly as they used to be.

Posted on Aug 16, 2014 4:12 PM

Reply
6 replies

Aug 17, 2014 3:31 AM in response to Linc Davis

I have tried to:


Reboot.


Stop & restart filesharing and disable & enable guest access.


I tried to copy the Drop Box folder from a backup, but that lost the correct factory permissions for that folder, too.


I also created ~/Public/Drop Box folder from scratch. I had to enable Write only (Drop Box) permissions for staff and everyone so the guest can use it. But I couldn't figure out how to add another row to the top with Custom Privileges like it is in the factory default:


User uploaded file

Without that line, the files the guest drops there get incomplete permissions. (For example I dropped my ready-made Text Wrangler prefs files to my daughter's Mac and wondered why they didn't work and caused Text Wrangler to hang. It was caused by the missing ownership):

User uploaded file

The same file dropped to my son's Mac with the factory default Drop Box folder permissions work OK:

User uploaded file

How can I adjust the ~/Public/Drop Box folder's permissions correctly?

Aug 17, 2014 7:15 AM in response to Matti Haveri

Start up in Recovery mode. When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select

Utilities Terminal

from the menu bar. A Terminal window will open. In that window, type this:

res

Press the tab key. The partial command you typed will automatically be completed to this:

resetpassword

Press return. A Reset Password window will open. You’re not going to reset a password.

Select your startup volume ("Macintosh HD," unless you gave it a different name) if not already selected.

Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.

Under Reset Home Directory Permissions and ACLs, click the Reset button.

Select

Restart

from the menu bar.

Aug 17, 2014 7:49 AM in response to Linc Davis

Thanks for the detailed info but unfortunately that didn't reset ~/Public/Drop Box folder's permissions to their factory defaults.


So currently dropping file as a guest to the Drop Box folder marks it Read & Writeable only for "nobody". It used to be Read & Writeable also to the account's owner.


Connecting to her Mac via her username & password gets the permissions right. But I have used the guest account to copy some files to her computer and would like to continue to do so. She'd rather not fiddle with permissions.


It seems the account's owner's top duplicate line with "Custom" permissions is needed for guest sharing to work. I tried to add it there via the GUI but it didn't seem to get the job done. Maybe that could be done via the Terminal?

Aug 17, 2014 9:49 AM in response to Linc Davis

My clean install of OS X 10.9 has that "Custom" entry and it seems work with guest sharing:

drwx-wx-wx+ 4 matti staff 136 17 Elo 17:49 Drop Box


My daughter's permissions lack that "Custom" entry and she don't get ownership to files dropped there as a guest:


drwx-wx-wx 4 Sara staff 136 17 Elo 18:33 Drop Box


So maybe I should now learn how use chmod to add that missing + at to the end?


...OK, these Terminal commands seem to do the trick:

cd ~/Public/

mkdir "Drop Box"

chmod 733 "Drop Box"

chmod +a "$USER allow list,add_file,search,delete,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,re adextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity,writesecurity,chown,file_inherit,directory_i nherit" "Drop Box"

Please tell me if the last command needs fine-tuning.

Now guest sharing works as it used to do.

This page helped me to the right track:


http://www.mactalk.com.au/11/99707-create-proper-drop-box-os-x.html

How to restore ~/Public/Drop Box

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