[kman42]

I had previously set up our home mac so that my wife and I shared our iTunes library using ACLs--basically, we both used aliases in our home folders that pointed to a shared iTunes Library.xml file and shared song files. The real files were in a shared folder that gave us both read/write access using ACLs. This worked great (and for iPhoto too). Problem is, when I upgraded to Leopard my wife gets constant error messages in iTunes telling her that she doesn't have sufficient privileges to write to the iTunes Library file. I notice it when syncing her iPhone.

I think it happened because I used Leopard's new Sharing feature to set up a family group and assigned that parent folder holder the iTunes stuff to this group. Even though the group has read/write privs, I think it is getting screwed up with the ACLs. If I get info on the folder, it shows the group with read/write and then it says that my wife has 'custom privileges'. Is this a reference to the ACLs?

What would be the appropriate command to remove the ACLs from the parent folder (and all files/directories inside) so that the group privileges have sole control.

Or am I thinking about this incorrectly? Perhaps it's not an ACL/group priv problem at all.

Thanks,
kman

[Hal Itosis]

Since I believe each user should have their own library files, and share only the m[4p][3ap] music files,
I prefer not to get too deep into the details of your implementation. So I'll just answer the easy one...

Originally Posted by kman42 

What would be the appropriate command to remove the ACLs from the parent folder
(and all files/directories inside) so that the group privileges have sole control.

chmod -R -N /path/to/the/parent/folder

...but surely if you set up the ACLs you've seen that one before?

[Art Vandelay]

You can handle this simply using the Get Info window. Since you're using a group to control access to this folder, simply remove the entry for your wife.

[kman42]

Hal--While I appreciate your desire to keep things simple, I'd also like to hear why you believe each user should have their own library files. My biggest reason for not doing this is that you then have to re-import every song whenever you add something new. The drawback as far as I can tell is that you can only have one instance of iTunes running when you share library files. It's a tradeoff that I wish Apple would fix by making an option to have media on a home computer be a shared resource that only requires a single import. They could just limit access to five users just as they now allow five machines access to purchased songs.

I'm not super familiar with ACLs. I went through the exercise long ago to figure out how to set things up for shared libraries, but haven't had need of them since. Thanks for the command.

Art--there is no entry for my wife in the Get Info window. It just says above the access control box that she has custom privileges.

kman

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by kman42 

My biggest reason for not doing this is that you then have to re-import every song whenever you add something new.

True... in order to acquire files added by other users, we'd need
to "add" them to our library. But how long does that take? 5 or 6
seconds? Okay... maybe 10.

As each user launches iTunes, first thing to do is type command-O.
Typically, the directory dialog will already be parked at the top level
of the "music" folder (from the last time it was used)... so then we
just hit the enter key. ⌘O and enter. Done. iTunes will delve down
into the folder and add all new items it finds to our library. [i.e., we
don't need to do it on a song-by-song basis... just "add" the folder.]

If iTunes wasn't parked in the right folder, then it takes a bit longer.

Originally Posted by kman42 

It's a tradeoff that I wish Apple would fix by making an option to have media on a home computer be a shared resource that only requires a single import.

Seems like they did (only, don't "import"; use Add to Library...).

--

Note: before iTunes 7, that was the whole story. But -- now that iTunes 7 has
added CoverFlow -- the "Add to Library..." operation on a folder will also do a
full run, to verify all the album cover art. So... maybe I've understated the time.