[DKeithA]

I understand the concept of privileges to files, but I don't understand why these won't stay corrected. Every week or so I repair permissions, and the same ones always need correcting. Is there something I can do to permanently resolve/correct this? And why does my Widget folder need 'special' permissions? Did I configure something wrong? Please excuse my ignorance; I really appreciate thoughts/help.

Repairing permissions for “Macintosh HD”
Determining correct file permissions.
We are using special permissions for the file or directory ./Library/Widgets. New permissions are 16877
Permissions differ on ./private/var/log/secure.log, should be -rw------- , they are -rw-r-----
Owner and group corrected on ./private/var/log/secure.log
Permissions corrected on ./private/var/log/secure.log

Permissions repair complete
The privileges have been verified or repaired on the selected volume

[himself]

Those "we are using special permissions..." messages you may see when you repair permissions don't necessarily mean that those permissions were altered; it is really just a notice that there are "special" permissions on that directory/file.

For everything else, its hard to say, but applications and other running processes may often change the permissions of files and directories on your system, which is why those particular files are always being "repaired."

[DKeithA]

That makes sence. It's not a huge deal, I guess, I just want to keep things in the best shape I can. Thanks for your insight.

[Leica/tri-x/d76]

Hi
I found your question because i have the same question. When i Googled (./private/var/log/secure.log) i was given a page of sites and found this which might be the answer that you are looking for.
http://www.macaddict.com/forums/topic/64854

[CharlesS]

For most files, there is not one specific set of permissions that the file must have in order to work. Usually there are several different sets of permissions that the file could have, all of which would work equally well. The Repair Permissions script exists to correct problems that you may accidentally inflict if you regularly like to mess around in the Terminal, and you occasionally change something's owner to yourself and forget to change it back or something similar. Most UNIX operating systems don't have a Repair Permissions script, and it will not kill your system if you don't run this on a regular basis.