Advice for setting access permissions

Question

Hi,
I've changed my account to 'standard' and created a new admin account after reading here about security etc. Now I notice that other 'standard' users on the machine have read/write access to all my docs but I don't have access to theirs. I want to set permissions so that I have read/write access from my standard account and my admin account (as a safety measure) but that other standard users don't have access other than to my public folder.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Dual G5 2.5Ghz, Powerbook G4 1.33Ghz, iPod 40GB   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  

Answer 1

I haven't been working on the machine much since, but
needed to quickly do something (in a rush, and not
paying attention) and moved everything back again. I
now find I don't have permission to modify some of my
own folders. I ran those Terminal commands you
suggested and they now come up with a bunch of
objections, saying they can't complete the command.
It sounds like you have files/folders that are still owned by User A inside User B's home folder.
You can restore all contents of a home folder to its respective owner by logging in as an administrator, and entering these commands into Terminal:
sudo chown -R jim /Users/jim
sudo chown -R bob /Users/bob
etc.
To cut through all this, would it be sensible for me
to copy all my documents and apps to the external
hard drive, delete the originals, create an entirely
new user account both on my G5 and my Powerbook (I
frequently share files between them, mounting them on
each other's desktops, syncing, etc) with identical
names, then copy the docs and apps over to the new
users on each machine. Starting from scratch, as it
were? Would this work?
Putting documents onto an external drive is a good way to share them between user accounts. Right-click the drive, open the Get Info panel, and check the Ignore Ownership box. Then all user accounts can modify anything on the drive.
The problem with keeping shared documents on the boot volume is that by default, newly created files are read-only for everybody except their creator. If User A creates a document and wants User B to be able to edit it, User A must change the permissions manually.
Under Tiger, it's possible to use ACLs (Access Control Lists) to set up a shared folder in which all documents will be read-write for all users that you specify. This can be accomplished by:
1) Logging in as an administrator
2) Create a new folder in /Users/Shared, call it something like /Users/Shared/sharefolder
3) Open Terminal
4) enter sudo fsaclctl -p / -e
5) paste all of this into Terminal at once, replacing USERNAME with the short user name of one of the users to be given access:
sudo chmod +a "USERNAME allow delete,chown,list,search,add_file,\
addsubdirectory,delete_child,file_inherit,directoryinherit" \
/Users/Shared/sharefolder
6) Repeat step 5, replacing USERNAME with another user's short user name
7) COPY (NOT move) any existing files you want to share to /Users/Shared/sharefolder
8) Delete the original files
Now both users can edit anything in the sharefolder, and anything added to it in the future. Note that for the permissions settings to stick, files must either be newly created inside of it, or copied to it. Previously existing files that are moved to that location will retain their original permissions and not inherit the new ones.
eMac   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  
eMac   Mac OS X (10.4.7)  
eMac   Mac OS X (10.4.7)