[OS X TeX] file permissions

[David Watson]

On Apr 30, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Daniel Becker wrote:

>>> what are the correct permissions for /usr/ and /usr/bin/ ?
>> 
>> pete 494 /\ ls -ld /usr /usr/bin
>> drwxr-xr-x  11 root  wheel    408  1 Apr 22:15 /usr
>> drwxr-xr-x   3 root  wheel  31042  1 Apr 22:14 /usr/bin
> 
> Hm. I have 
> 
> Daniels-MacBook:~ danielb$ ls -ld /usr /usr/bin
> drwxr-xr-x@   15 root  wheel    510 26 Apr 21:06 /usr
> drwxr-xr-x  1088 root  wheel  36992 30 Apr 01:25 /usr/bin
> 
> looks similar.
> 
>>> I used chmod -R 755 usr to fix a ruby complaint about a world writable directory in the search path and now updating MacTeX via TeX Live Utility doesn't work anymore.
>> 
>> 
>> You don't own the directories and the files and subdirectories in them. And you *better* do not change permissions like a bloody beginner with 'chmod -R 755.' (Of course, if you need some practise in installing Mac OS X just run 'sudo chmod -R 755!') The proper tool is Disk Utility (Festplatten-Dienstprogramm). If Ruby doesn't like the correct permissions it reestablishes, then remove it!
> 
> Ah yes. Haha. I confess that I am a bloody beginner when it comes to unix. I thought sudo chmod -R 755 can't hurt. The problem was that I am not root? 
> 
> Do you suggest I need to reinstall OS X. Or simply to run Disk Utility? No jokes, please.

You can attempt to repair permissions by using the Disk Utility.
If that doesn't work, you may have to reinstall the BSD subsystem using your installation media and something like Pacifist.
Note that any programs you may have installed or compiled – if they install executables, libraries, etc in /usr/ – you're going to have to rerun the installer for those particular programs.
You probably won't have many such programs outside of ghostscript or growl.

Good luck!