Random bad permissions on OSX

I occasionally run into weird permission problems after a restore of files and folders on my machine, I think it has to do with OSX trying to protect me from myself.

Today I needed to fire up my coding environment on my Mac Mini, so I jumped into the folder for the code that I wanted to update using SourceTree, and did (what I thought was going to be) a quick pull, only to get a weird error message.

I figured it was probably something goofy, so I went to the command line, only to get another weird error:

xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun

Well, I’ve seen that before, and knew that message was probably because I’ve updated the OS a few times since I last coded. Basically it means the XCode command line tools are missing. Fixing that is easy: just run:

xcode-select --install

This fires up the Xcode installer, which will ask you if you want to install Xcode, or just the command line tools. In this case I don’t need Xcode, so I chose the latter.

That took a pretty long time (it was on “about a minute left” for at least 10 minutes), which was a bit worrisome, but not all that unusual.

Going back to the command line, I tried to do my “git pull” only to get another error:

fatal: Unable to write new index file

OK, weird – why can’t it write that. Found a few things online that suggested running “git gc” might fix it, so I tried that, but that just gave me this error:

fatal: failed to write ref-pack file
error: failed to run pack-refs

More curious Googling, and finding the suggestion to look at the extended file permissions, so I tried that:

robweaver$ ls -le .git
total 264
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff     50 Sep 19  2015 COMMIT_EDITMSG
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff    802 Apr 29 08:38 FETCH_HEAD
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff     41 Sep 19  2015 HEAD
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff     41 Sep 19  2015 ORIG_HEAD
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+   2 robweaver  staff     68 Jan 14  2014 branches
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff    496 May 11  2015 config
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff     73 Jan 14  2014 description
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+   4 robweaver  staff    136 May  3  2015 hawser
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+  11 robweaver  staff    374 Jan 14  2014 hooks
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff  99575 Sep 25  2015 index
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+   3 robweaver  staff    102 Jan 14  2014 info
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+   4 robweaver  staff    136 Jan 14  2014 logs
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+ 260 robweaver  staff   8840 May 11  2015 objects
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx+   1 robweaver  staff    176 Jan 14  2014 packed-refs
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
drwxrwxrwx+   6 robweaver  staff    204 May 11  2015 refs
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow list,search,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow list,add_file,search,add_subdirectory,delete_child,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity
-rwxrwxrwx@   1 robweaver  staff    156 Nov  1  2015 sourcetreeconfig
 0: group:everyone deny delete
 1: 4C6F60A2-E302-49BF-A4C9-5EE480973499 allow read,readattr,readextattr,readsecurity
 2: user:_spotlight allow read,write,append,readattr,writeattr,readextattr,writeextattr,readsecurity

Wait, what’s this “group:everyone deny delete” ? Well, no wonder I can’t run stuff that updates these folders. More Googling and I find the right switch for chmod to clear out the extended permissions:

sudo chmod -R -N .git

Note that I had the two flags reversed the first time and the command told me it couldn’t find a file named “-R”. After running the above, the folder permissions looked more normal:

robweaver$ ls -le .git
total 264
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff     50 Sep 19  2015 COMMIT_EDITMSG
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff    802 Apr 29 08:38 FETCH_HEAD
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff     41 Sep 19  2015 HEAD
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff     41 Sep 19  2015 ORIG_HEAD
drwxrwxrwx    2 robweaver  staff     68 Jan 14  2014 branches
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff    496 May 11  2015 config
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff     73 Jan 14  2014 description
drwxrwxrwx    4 robweaver  staff    136 May  3  2015 hawser
drwxrwxrwx   11 robweaver  staff    374 Jan 14  2014 hooks
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff  99575 Sep 25  2015 index
drwxrwxrwx    3 robweaver  staff    102 Jan 14  2014 info
drwxrwxrwx    4 robweaver  staff    136 Jan 14  2014 logs
drwxrwxrwx  260 robweaver  staff   8840 May 11  2015 objects
-rwxrwxrwx    1 robweaver  staff    176 Jan 14  2014 packed-refs
drwxrwxrwx    6 robweaver  staff    204 May 11  2015 refs
-rwxrwxrwx@   1 robweaver  staff    156 Nov  1  2015 sourcetreeconfig

And my commands worked as expected.