Assigning *nix permissions on a user basis

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-11-04 07:40pm

I want to know if it's possible to assign permissions in a *nix on a user-by-user basis. Let's say I have a folder. I want User A to have rwx permissions to this folder, User B to have rw- permissions and User C to only have r-- permissions. I can't create a group, because everyone in that group will have the same permissions. I want some way to tell OS X to give Users A, B and C specific, distinct permissions. It would also be helpful is this was possible for groups, as well. By all indications, I don't think this is possible, but maybe someone can enlighten me.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-11-04 07:47pm

Unless your *nix varient and its filesystem supports ACLs, this is a no go. At this moment, I don't think MacOS X supports them.

Ligier · Post by **Ligier** » 2003-11-04 08:03pm

Durandal wrote:I want to know if it's possible to assign permissions in a *nix on a user-by-user basis.

I concur with phongn. Unless ACL's are supported, there's no proper way to assign permissions on a user-by-user basis. That leaves us with an ugly mess of group permission trickery...

Have User A own the folder, with "rwx" permissons. Assign User B to Group B, which has group ownership of the folder, and has "rw" permissions. Then, set the "other" permissions to "r."

Er, yeah, that's not what you wanted at all.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-11-04 11:07pm

The problem is that that method isn't extensible beyond 3 users.

I guess I could just use separate directories or some other hodgepodge method. I thought that Windows was capable of doing this ...

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-11-04 11:08pm

Windows NT, 2K, 2K3 and XP Pro are easily capable of doing this. I thought you were trying to do this on *nix?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-11-04 11:47pm

phongn wrote:Windows NT, 2K, 2K3 and XP Pro are easily capable of doing this. I thought you were trying to do this on *nix?

I was just musing. Is this in any way possible with Samba 3.0? Or does it talk directly to the system for permissions?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-11-04 11:47pm

AFAIK, it talks to the system.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2003-11-05 07:11pm

Dual boot yellowdog with ACL patches.

.

Can you patch darwin and still run MacOSX?

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2003-11-05 07:31pm

Pu-239 wrote:Can you patch darwin and still run MacOSX?

As far as I know, yes.