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NeilCharter · Aug 20, 2005, 08:07 PM

I've been finding that recently I need to authenticate before I can add Apps / folders to the Application Folder.

Apparently I only have permission to read only. The owner is system.

Is this a new security measure to prevent nefarious software from attacking the machine or a new feature for Tiger, or something I've mistakenly done?

Is it wise to change ownership or group so that authentication is not required?

Thanks

Neil

rickey939 · Aug 20, 2005, 08:12 PM

Are these your permissions on your "Applications" folder?

NeilCharter · Aug 20, 2005, 08:40 PM

Nope - I can only Read only. It is grayed out so it can't be changed. Also the group is different (wheel). I tried to place a picture here but do seem to know how.

rickey939 · Aug 20, 2005, 08:43 PM

Have you tried fixing permissions via Disk Utility? Can you change the group?

jay3ld · Aug 20, 2005, 10:49 PM

change the owner to you. change group to admin and read and write. change owner back to system and you should still have read/wright access... and other should be read only

CharlesS · Aug 21, 2005, 01:45 AM

Two things you can do:

1. Click the little padlock in there and change the owner to yourself, like jay3ld suggested, and all the options will become available. Change it back to system afterward

2. Run Repair Permissions in Disk Utility, and it will do it for you (see, this is the sort of problem that Repair Permissions was actually meant to solve).

NeilCharter · Aug 21, 2005, 01:52 AM

Fixing permissions via Disk Utility worked like a charm.

Thanks for all your help.

Neil

red rocket · Aug 21, 2005, 05:03 AM

Originally Posted by NeilCharter

Nope - I can only Read only. It is grayed out so it can't be changed. Also the group is different (wheel). I tried to place a picture here but do seem to know how.

It's a security feature. Non-admin users should not be allowed to modify the main applications folder. Irrelevant on a non-critical single-user machine, crucial on multi-user machines.

NeilCharter · Aug 21, 2005, 12:26 PM

Originally Posted by red rocket

It's a security feature. Non-admin users should not be allowed to modify the main applications folder. Irrelevant on a non-critical single-user machine, crucial on multi-user machines.

That makes sense for non-admin users, but both of the users on the machine are set a admin, so that is why I thought it weird that I needed to authenticate everything I changed something in the Apps folder. Also saw similar behavior with the machine top directory.

On running the repair permissions feature in disk utility, the first thing that was found was incorrect read-write permissions for the users. After the repair was complete, I regained read-write capabilities as rickey described.

I've never had an issue like this, so it is good to know that Apple have provide a very simple way to fix these errors that crop up from time to time. And of course thanks to you guys for sorting out a problem that was bugging me.

Arolte · Sep 30, 2005, 01:50 PM

Sorry for bringing up an old topic, but I'm having the same problem with OS X 10.3.9. I've clean installed Panther and updated everything all over again TWICE now. I've repaired all my permissions, attempted to change my user "Application" folder permissions to my username with "read and write" permissions, attempted to log in as root via NetInfo Manager.... but it's STILL asking for authentication. There is only one user account on this system (admin) and it's me. Sigh... what the hell. Any ideas?

Arolte · Sep 30, 2005, 02:08 PM

Well, I went in and manually changed the permissions to my username (no option for "admin" on the list) and clicked on "apply to enclosed items" and it seems to be working fine now. I ran through another permission repair to make sure this wouldn't cause any problems. So far so good. Anyone know if that's safe? I hope none of the applications in my user folder didn't get messed up...