Sufficient access privileges?

Question

OK, this is driving me nuts. I upgraded to Leopard a month ago and all of a sudden I have lost privileges.
I had moved the local files from all of my web sites to the "Sites" folder under my user account. Yesterday, I was going to make a copy of one of the folder for one of the sites so I could do a redesign.
I copied the folder to my desktop and tried to rename it, but I go the following error message: "You do not have sufficient access privileges to rename the item 'Jan's Web Site.'"
Now, I am the administrator and this is MY account. I have walked my way up the directory up to "Users" folder, changing the file permissions to "Read & Write" for everyone and nothing changes. I still cannot change the name of that file.
Can someone help me regain control of my Mac?
Thanks in advance,
- Paul

Answer 1

biovizier wrote:
The problem should be relatively easy to fix, though some use of the command line is required. For a given "standard" folder and its contents, the steps consist of removing all ACLs, optionally adjusting permissions, then restoring the original ACE just to the top level folder.
You don't want to remove all ACLs from your home directory, that will screw up the permissions (for example) on your Drop Box which has a special ACL on it to setup the owner of the drop box to have Read&Write privs on any file/folder copied into it.
There are two ways to solve this. One is via Terminal and one is via the Reset Password utility on the Leopard Install DVD. For those who aren't very skilled with Terminal, I would recommend the Reset Password utility.
1) boot from your Leopard install CD.
2) Choose your language.
3) When the menubar appears, select Utilities->Reset Password.
4) In the window that appears, select your boot volume from the list at the top.
5) In the popup button below the volume list, select your user from the list.
6) Click the "Reset" button at the bottom of the window. This will reset the privs back to their default settings.
7) Repeat Steps 5 & 6 for every user on your machine who has this problem (except root).
That should clean things up.
Here is how you would do it in Terminal, which (unlike the Reset Password Utility) won't effect any specific changes you may have made to your permissions (like adding another user or giving some other user different privs then the default Read-Only).
*sudo chmod -R +a "everyone deny delete" ~/* +Note: 'sudo' will cause it to ask for your admin password, but when you type it will not show the text. This is normal. Just make sure you type your password correctly. This command will add the 'every deny delete' ACL to everything inside your home directory. This is done so that the next command will succeed. If the next command encounters a file/folder that doesn't have this ACL on it, it will fail and bail out, ultimately leaving your home directory half fixed.+
*sudo chmod -R -a "everyone deny delete" ~/* +Note: This will remove the 'everyone deny delete' ACL from all files and folders in your home directory, the next command will add it back to where it needs to be+
*sudo chmod +a "everyone deny delete" ~/ ~/Desktop ~/Documents ~/Downloads ~/Library ~/Movies ~/Music ~/Pictures ~/Public ~/Sites* +Note: This only applies the 'everyone deny delete' ACE to the folders listed, not their contents. These folders are required by the system, this ACE prevents you (or anyone else) from renaming, moving or deleting them (because they are required by the OS).+
Just copy/paste the bold text, one at a time, into a Terminal window and press return. That should do it. Good luck...