external hard drive permissions issue

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

ya – by default, os x treats mounted external drives as owned by whomever is logged in at the time…

you can override this default by checking “ignore ownership on this volume” in the ownership and permissions…see here for more info:

https://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?path=Mac/10.4/en/mh670.html

this will ensure that your permissions are preserved across logins…

sitruc

[13]

What I would do is use disk utility to create a blank disk image on the drive and select encrypted on it, when it goes to create it, you are prompted to give it a password. The disk image cannot be mounted with out the password (so make sure you uncheck the box that says remember password). Make sure that you give the disk image plenty of space for your video. Just make sure that you unmount the disk image when you are finished.

I do this as a way to keep certain files secure like financial files, a document containing all my user names and passwords for different sites, like the bank, car-payment site, credit card site, etc because of course every place has different requirements for user names and passwords so you can never use the same one on all of them. So now I only have to remember only one password.

Hope this helps.

[Craig Alan]

So I check “ignore ownership.” (I’ve tried both).

Then I select the folder/project in question and do what?

You can

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

without knowing your specific user and groups settings, it’s hard for me to say…but the overall user and group permissions in os x are explained very nicely here:

https://www.osxfaq.com/Tutorials/LearningCenter/AdvancedUnix/ugp/index.ws

basically each file has an owner, group and “everybody else” setting – most likely, all your users are in one of 2 groups – staff or admin. if you set something to be visible to just you and your group, most everybody will still be able to see it…therefore, you’d want to just make the file owner the only one that can see the file. to add a further wrinkle, there is read, write and execute, but it’s probably best to just peruse the above article and see if that makes it any less confusing…note that it does focus on actual unix commands instead of gui controls, but the concepts in there are in the permissions dialog, so it should help make it all make a bit more sense…

sitruc

[Craig Alan]

Ok. That helped a little.

On this particular computer, I have the following user accounts:
P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, and my account which is the only admin account, teacher.

So if I have an Imovie folder on an external drive and I want to assign it to be read only by and written to only by P1, I would
Check ignore ownership on the external drive.

I would sign in as P1.
Then I select the Imovie project.

You can: read and write
Owner: P1
Group: staff
Others: no access.

Would this be right?

OSX 10.4.7; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

[eyecamiam] “On this particular computer, I have the following user accounts:
P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, P6, and my account which is the only admin account, teacher.

So if I have an Imovie folder on an external drive and I want to assign it to be read only by and written to only by P1”

in this case, you would set the owner permissions to full “read/write”, the group permissions for staff would be either “read” or “no access” (depending on how secure you want to be) and the “others” would just be “no access”…that should in theory get you where you need to go if you have that other ignore ownership checkbox set correctly…

sitruc

[Craig Alan]

I changed it to staff and no access.

On the ignore check box: If I check it, none of these setting stick. If I uncheck it then i get the negative sign for the Imovie folder and under info and permissions P2 will, for example, say “no access” but it opens anyway.

Do I need to click the apply to enclosed items? after checking or unchecking “ignore.” You said I should check it right?

Does all this need to be done in a certain order?

Thanks for your help.

OSX 10.4.7; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

i don’t have an external drive on my mac, so i cannot currently do any testing on this to verify, but yes – apply to all enclosed items if you want to and no – order doesn’t matter…

and ignore should not be checked if you want to follow this model of individual permissions on each file on the drive…

sitruc

[Craig Alan]

I’ve been checking and unchecking that option anyway. Unchecked it let’s me set all as we discussed. Checking it means the log-in-ed account owns all. As set unchecked: The Imovie icon turns to a folder with a red negative under other accounts. However, it opens anyway. I will try all this on another computer. A bug? I’ll also try another type of file.

OSX 10.4.7; Quicksilver Dual 1 gig; FCP 4.5, 3.0.4; Sony camcorder vx2000/pd170; write professionally for a variety of media;teach video production in L.A.

[Curtis Thompson]

hello…

[eyecamiam] “As set unchecked: The Imovie icon turns to a folder with a red negative under other accounts. However, it opens anyway. I will try all this on another computer.”

if you have it to read access for others or the group, then they can open (i.e. read it) – if you set it to no access, they should not even be able to open it or do anything in it at all…

sitruc