Target folder permissions NOT inheriting with MOVED files

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Target folder permissions NOT inheriting with MOVED files

Hi, it has been exhausting researching and experimenting with permission settings to ultimately have files copied or moved to a "shared" folder to inherit permissions of their target parent folder. Below is an environment in my research.

Mac Pro [10.10.1 Yosemite] with a shared folder. PC [non Mac] as well as Mac clients using the same workgroup name accessing the shared folder. I have used the chmod ACL settings below. The permission inheritance works on NEWLY CREATED folders/files or COPIED [from locally or via a networked computer] folders/files. But, the inheritance does NOT work on folders/files that have been MOVED from same Mac or from another computer over the same network. Rather, these MOVED folders/files retain the permissions of their parent folder from where they were moved.

chmod -R +a "group:[examplegroup] allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextat tr,writeextattr,readsecurity,file_inherit,directory_inherit" /path/to/folder

There will be times where folders/files will be MOVED rather than COPIED from various users and we want these files to also inherit permissions set on the target Shared folder. We don't want to manually configure the read+write permissions and "Apply to Enclose items" within the Get Info window.

This is a strange behavior when it comes to file sharing where read + write permissions are assumed within this group. I have tested this scenario on Windows 8 and 10 PCs and the shared folders there resulted in the desired permission inheritance as described above. What is Microsoft doing that Apple is not doing in this case?

Other things I have tried:

-Tinkertool System 2 application which resulted in the same undesired behavior.

-I have tested with a shared folder on a USB connected flash drive to represent an external hard drive and permissions do inherit as desired. But, we already have an external USB drive acting as a Time Machine backup. So, I don't want to connect 2 external drives in this scenario.

Possible solutions/workaround:

-I've heard that my desired permission inheritance might work on an OS X server version. I have not confirmed this to work. But I have not tried this. I don't want to have to upgrade or install a server OS on this Mac Pro just to have permissions to work. Also, the Mac Pro is being used as a desktop with 3rd party apps which I don't know would be restricted being used on OS X Server platform.

-NAS as a dedicated file server which might offer the desired inheritable permissions. I have not confirmed this. This would be an additional cost.

But the least costly and best solution for us would hopefully be to have the desired permissions inherited on the Mac Pro. We originally bought the Mac Pro to use it for day to day work as well as to serve as a file server for a very small office. Is there a way to get the desired inheritable permissions on moved folders/files? I have done extensive googling and most of the workarounds have been using the ACL chmod commands, but none of them addressed that it works on moved items. Please help.

null-OTHER, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)

Posted on Dec 1, 2015 12:37 AM

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Answer 1

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TheMeester1

Level 1

5 points

Dec 24, 2015 2:59 AM in response to windNsalsa

@windNsalsa

I have a similar issue. I've created a shared folder which I've setup so that group <foo> inherits permissions to access the folder. Some of the time, it works great. For example, any user in the group can create files in the directory and all other users in the group can access those files. That's exactly what I want.

For some reason though, when I move files around within that directory structure using Finder, the files do not inherit the permissions of the target folder. This is extremely annoying because I have to manually manipulate the permissions of the files after I've moved them. Otherwise, other users in the group cannot access the files. Aargh!

It seems to me that Macs just don't work seamlessly with ACLs. I've had similar issues with getting Photos to use my shared directory. Even though the ACLs say Photos should be able to access the directory, Photos consistently reports that there's a permissions problem with the directory. The only way Photos will work with a shared directory is if the POSIX permissions permit read+write access to Everyone. This behavior is discussed extensively in another discussion thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6987211

Why is it so hard to have shared directory which is only available to registered users on my Mac (as opposed to Apple's default shared directory, which is available to Everyone, even Guest)?

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