File permissions issue on OS X El Capitan and SMB share

Question

Level 1

8 points

File permissions issue on OS X El Capitan and SMB share

Since updating to El Capitan all files in SMB and AFP shares have the 'x' bit set, even though the premissions were properly displayed on earlier OS. The SMB share is shared by Samba on Ubuntu, while the AFP share is shared by Apple Time Capsule. I couldn't find an option to disable this and I see no reason in not preserving the permissions. Is there a fix or a workaround for this issue? Thanks!

See also: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/33090925/file-permissions-issue-on-os-x-el-ca pitan-and-smb-share/33093076#33093076

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 12, 2015 7:32 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Oct 12, 2015 7:42 PM in response to eladts

There no longer is a need to repair permissions. All permissions are locked under the new "rootless" environment. They no longer require repairing.

Reply

Answer 2

eladts Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2015 7:46 PM in response to Kappy

I'm not talking about the permissions on the system drive. I'm talking about permissions on Linux/Unix SMB/AFP shares which used to display correctly before but now are not.

Reply

Answer 3

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Oct 12, 2015 7:51 PM in response to eladts

Perhaps you should inquire about this in a Linux forum. It's not clear this change is related to El Capitan. Try posting in a related forum. There is an OS X Server forum although I don't know if it would apply. This forum is for the client version of OS X.

Reply

Answer 4

eladts Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2015 7:56 PM in response to Kappy

The problem is with the client side for sure, as nothing was changed on the servers. Previous versions of desktop OS X see the permissions correctly from both SMB and AFP. The problem is not only with Linux Samba servers but also with Apple Time Capsule. Please read the link in my first post for a more detailed description of the issue and why it is not just a cosmetic one.

Reply

Answer 5

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Oct 12, 2015 8:33 PM in response to eladts

Sorry, but I can't really be of much help. I understand the changes in El Capitan are relates to rootless and locked permissions. The user cannot access permissions unless they disable the SIP in the Terminal while booted to the Recovery HD. This is done be getting to the Utilities Menu on the Recovery HD, selecting Terminal from the Utilities menu in the screen menubar. When the Terminal window opens enter:

csrutil disable

Press RETURN. This turns off the SIP, but this also results in the loss of OS X protection of the system so you do it at your own risk. I suspect not a good idea for a server environment. This will disable the SIP so you regain the ability to change permissions. Unfortunately, this is the extent of my knowledge of the subject.

Reply

Answer 6

eladts Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 12, 2015 8:42 PM in response to Kappy

Thanks for trying to help, but I don't think SIP (aka rootless) is the issue here, for several reasons:

SIP applies only to the system volume. It make no sense to apply it to any other local volume, let alone to remote network shares.
SIP disallows writing to protected files. In this case the permissions are reported incorrectly, but there is no issue writing to the files on the remote shares.
The third party SSHFS file system doesn't have this issue with El Capitan and displays the remote permissions correctly.

Reply

Answer 7

Oct 19, 2015 2:32 PM in response to eladts

I’ve got the exactly same problem, as we use an ubuntu server at work with SMB share. Since El Capitan, all files are being viewed with 0755 permissions.

It’s really annoying because we have some Git repositories over SMB and we see different status between server-side and mac-side.

I’ve posted an issue on Server Fault, but I’m pretty sure this is cause by El Capitan, everything was OK on Yosemite.

http://serverfault.com/questions/728667/file-permissions-issue-on-os-x-el-capita n-and-smb-share?noredirect=1#comment9079…

Reply

Answer 8

eladts Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 19, 2015 6:59 PM in response to Ambobo25000

As a partial workaround, you can share the files using SSHFS instead of SMB. SSHFS preserves the permissions, however it have several drawbacks:

Issues when multiple users write the same files.
No support for native extended attributes, ACLs etc.
Slower than SMB.

Reply

Answer 9

eladts Author

Level 1

8 points

Oct 22, 2015 8:35 AM in response to eladts

This issue still persists after upgrading to OS X 10.11.1.

Reply

Answer 10

Oct 31, 2015 1:01 AM in response to eladts

Hi, my problem is a little different than yours but maybe they are related.

We updated the computers in our studio to El Capitan, which connect to a server that has Yosemite, and all of a sudden we started experiencing issues where Photoshop would not save files opened on a networked drive. We have been using this workflow for years but suddenly, since El Capitan, it wouldn't work. I did some digging and realized that it may be related to SMB. So I disabled SMB in File Sharing and now our computers only connect to the server via AFP, and viola! File saving works again.

My biggest concern now is that SMB is supposedly a lot faster than AFP, though we haven't yet tested the workflow to see if there is a noticeable difference. Does anyone know if this is true?

Reply

Answer 11

hwhuyler

Level 1

8 points

Nov 3, 2015 1:12 PM in response to eladts

I don't know to whom I should address my issue.I upgraded from Yosemite to El Capitan (10.11.1). My sharing and permissions on MAC drive and Seagate external worked fine with Yosemite. Now with 10.11.1 I cannot set sharing and permissions. I can only READ. I can only save to DESKTOP. Is there a solution?

Reply

Answer 12

Nov 3, 2015 2:28 PM in response to hwhuyler

hwhuyler-

Is it a network drive or directly wired to the computer in question? Have you tried/can you turn on "Ignore ownership of this volume"?

Are you saying the Info window will not let you change permissions from "Read only" to "Read & Write"?

Reply

Answer 13

Nov 6, 2015 10:38 AM in response to hwhuyler

I'm experiencing the exact same issue

my sharing & permissions indicates "You can only read" and Disk Utility show "Owners: Disabled"

Reply

Answer 14

Nov 6, 2015 4:37 PM in response to Dan Bradley

Hey Dan, have you tried disabling SMB in File Sharing (leaving only AFP checked)? I had your exact issue and this was the fix for me.

Reply

Answer 15

Jan 25, 2016 8:33 PM in response to maplevshoney

Tried this and doesn't help. I can't copy any file from my user to smb server. All permissions are set to read & write. Any other suggestions? This is irritating.

Reply