Admin or Staff?

Question

Level 1

91 points

Admin or Staff?

I have an iMac and a Macbook Pro.

I have one Administrator account on each.

I find that on the iMac I am listed in the permissions of most files and folders as "Admin." But on the Macbook Pro I am listed as "Staff."

I synchronize the files on my two computers using Chronosync. It does a great job. But it has issues with reconciling that the exact same folders and files on the two different machines have different permissions. And I don't know how to make them the same.

Why might I be Staff on one machine and Admin on the other for the exact same folders and files?

And how do I perhaps make myself Admin for all those files and folders on the Macbook Pro and for any future files and folders I create there?

Thanks!

Here's a screen shot of the setup with Chronosync:

Posted on Feb 16, 2015 10:57 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Feb 16, 2015 3:10 PM in response to explorz

That's not a great place to store your files. You should put them either in your Home folder or in the /Users/Shared folder. You can create your own filing hierarchy in Shared.

I think the only way they should have gotten those permissions were if you put them there using elevated privileges. Then, you would have been working as root, and they would have gotten set with the admin group instead of staff.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Feb 16, 2015 11:30 AM in response to explorz

You aren't "Admin" nor are you "Staff"

Both of those are groups to which the files belong. You are a member of the Staff group, as is every other human user. If you have the ability to administrate the Mac, you are also a member of the Admin group.

Files/folders created by root will have an admin group.

Files/folders created by you should have Staff as the group.

Were the files/folders that have an admin group created in your home folder or somewhere else?

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Answer 3

explorz Author

Level 1

91 points

Feb 16, 2015 11:33 AM in response to Barney-15E

The files/folders that have the admin group created are in a folder directly on my hard drive alongside my System and library and users folders.

On the other machine, the same folders and files with the Staff group are in the same place - directly on the hard drive alongside System and Users Folders.

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Answer 4

explorz Author

Level 1

91 points

Feb 17, 2015 7:52 AM in response to Barney-15E

Thanks.

Why do yo say that this isn't a good place to have a folder?

I was figuring that since this is a folder with most of my files that I am synching every few days between my iMac and my Macbook that having the folder in my Home Folder might create permission issues? My reasoning was that to keep the folder and files at the root level of the hard drive might eliminate some issues.

If I move that folder into my Home Folder on each computer, will that effect the group association?

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Answer 5

Joe Bailey

Level 6

12,227 points

Feb 17, 2015 8:10 AM in response to explorz

explorz wrote:

Why do yo say that this isn't a good place to have a folder?

By design all settings and data associated with a given user account are stored in the user folder found in /Users/yourshortname. So in order to completely synchronize everything between two computers you only have to concern yourself with the one folder. Remember that although you may be the only person using your Mac, you are not the only user there are several other "users" necessary for the operation of OS X and this design helps isolate one user from all the others.

explorz wrote:

If I move that folder into my Home Folder on each computer, will that effect the group association?

In a word NO. The files and data you create are "owned" by your user account no matter where they are located. In turn your user account belongs to a group. By default as a user you generally have read/write privileges but your group may have only Read only access. That is totally independent of where the files are located. Applications installed from the App Store or an installer are an exception to that general rule and in fact may be owned by the user "System". Whatever you do, you do not want to mess with that or you can create significant problems for yourself.

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Answer 6

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,342 points

Feb 17, 2015 5:00 PM in response to explorz

explorz wrote:

Thanks.

Why do yo say that this isn't a good place to have a folder?

While I don't think it has ever happened and doubt it will, there is no guarantee that files outside of /Users are safe from OS modifications. The /Users folder is for user data. It should remain immune from alteration.

If you need to share between user accounts, then the /Users/Shared folder is a good choice.

Regardless, if you are using Sync software, it should be taking care of the permissions.

I don't know if having them there caused it to use the admin group. My assumption is in order to write there, the sync software had to elevate its privileges. I don't know why they would get the admin group otherwise.

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