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Naive question about permissions

11 messages · Paul Hewson, Richard M. Heiberger, Simon Urbanek +2 more

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Hello,
I have just been given an institutional macbook - I'm very used to linux, but some apple things are baffling me (like the lack of sudo apt-get update and upgrade for example).   

I've installed roasted marshmallows, it's very nice.   However, I can't run it from command line (or aquamacs) due to some permissions error.   I've checked both R, the R64 and the symlink as described on the FAQ page.   All the permissions look OK (everyone seems to have x).

The only thing I can think of is that I'm not in the admin group (and can't seem to put myself in that group).    Could this be a chmod issue or am I barking up the wrong tree completely.

Paul

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Paul Hewson
Editor, Teaching Statistics (www.teachingstatistics.co.uk)
Associate Professor (SL) Statistics
School of Computing & Maths
Plymouth University
Drake Circus
Plymouth PL4 8AA
++44 (0)1752 586870
#
Paul,
On Oct 19, 2012, at 3:52 PM, Paul Hewson wrote:

            
It's called softwareupdate on OS X ... apt is specific to Debian, so, yes, OS X is not Debian :) Just install Debian on the MacBook if you don't want to be baffled, it's possible and some people that buy Macs just for the hardware do it.
We can't tell because you omitted all useful information ... (what error? where? how do you start it?)

Cheers,
Simon
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typing R in the console gets the error "you don't have permission to use the application R".   the message is on a dialog box that pops up.

the R gui though is marvellous, works fine.   Problem is I can't run r from aquamacs (same error message), or from make.

R will though run as sudo, but that seems like a naughty workround.   But at least it suggests all the paths etc. are correct.

Fairly sure this is all dumb newbie mac user, but I hope I'm not the first.   I couldn't see anything on any helplists anywhere.   The only thing close was to run the "repair permissions" which I've done and a email from you a couple of years ago about mac installer setting permissions.   As I say, I think I've tracked the symlink itself as well as the files it links to /usr/bin/R is itself a symlink to R64.    All three users have an x when you do ls -l , they don't all have r and w. 


Thanks
paul
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Paul Hewson
Editor, Teaching Statistics (www.teachingstatistics.co.uk)
Associate Professor (SL) Statistics
School of Computing & Maths
Plymouth University
Drake Circus
Plymouth PL4 8AA
++44 (0)1752 586870
On 19 Oct 2012, at 22:05, "Simon Urbanek" <simon.urbanek at r-project.org> wrote:

            
#
On Oct 19, 2012, at 5:28 PM, Paul Hewson wrote:

            
What exactly happens when you run R in Terminal? Do you still get a dialog box? It's a console application after all ...
To my best knowledge yes, you are - this is not something that usually happens with the CRAN binary .. it's rather odd unless you have some custom setting ... try R --vanilla just in case ...

Cheers,
Simon
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On 12-10-19 02:28 PM, Paul Hewson wrote:
Can you show us the output of running:
ls -l /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin

Davor
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Thanks very much all, I'm still sure this is mac naivety on my part, but I'm still curious how I've managed to foul up what seems like such a simple procedure.


John's longer point - I'm going to check out removing and re-installing.   I had to enter a system password and checkbox that I wanted all users to be able to use R.   I can certainly use R GUI as myself so don't entirely understand how I gave R gui different ownerships/permissions that R console.

Regarding the other questions (my naive and presumably wrong thought was that I need to put myself as a user in group admin, but I'm not sure that's entirely correct).


John's question
R.home() gives
"/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources"
Checking permissions gives 
pm6-0068:~ phewson$ ls -l /Library/Frameworks/R.framework
total 40
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin   24 18 Oct 11:16 Headers -> Versions/Current/Headers
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin   30 18 Oct 11:16 Libraries -> Versions/Current/Resources/lib
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin   31 18 Oct 11:16 PrivateHeaders -> Versions/Current/PrivateHeaders
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin   18 18 Oct 11:16 R -> Versions/Current/R
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin   26 18 Oct 11:16 Resources -> Versions/Current/Resources
drwxrwxr-x  5 root  admin  170 18 Oct 21:22 Versions


Simon's question, yes typing R in the console gives me a the dialog box, but the console does also gives me the following:
/usr/bin/R: line 259: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/exec/x86_64/R: Permission denied
/usr/bin/R: line 259: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/exec/x86_64/R: Undefined error: 
(same for R vanilla)

Davor's question yields:
phewson$ ls -l /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin
total 10176
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     1828 22 Jun 20:16 BATCH
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     2112 22 Jun 20:16 COMPILE
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      823 22 Jun 20:16 INSTALL
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     1579 22 Jun 20:16 LINK
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin        3 18 Oct 11:18 R -> R64
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     8773 18 Oct 11:18 R32
-rwxrwxrwx  1 root  admin     8775 18 Oct 11:18 R64
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      158 22 Jun 20:16 REMOVE
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     1374 22 Jun 20:16 Rcmd
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      312 22 Jun 20:16 Rd2pdf
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      359 22 Jun 20:16 Rdconv
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      258 22 Jun 20:16 Rdiff
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      310 22 Jun 20:16 Rprof
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    37992 22 Jun 20:18 Rscript
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      155 22 Jun 20:16 SHLIB
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      318 22 Jun 20:16 Stangle
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      316 22 Jun 20:16 Sweave
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    41048  5 Nov  2011 arch
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      317 22 Jun 20:16 build
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      317 22 Jun 20:16 check
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     7486 22 Jun 20:16 config
drwxrwxr-x  4 root  admin      136 22 Jun 20:16 exec
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     3600 22 Jun 20:16 f77_f2c
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  2326336 22 Jun 20:18 fc-cache
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin    13760 22 Jun 20:16 javareconf
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin   274347 22 Jun 20:16 libtool
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     3494 22 Jun 20:16 mkinstalldirs
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin      413 22 Jun 20:16 pager
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin  2385276 22 Jun 20:18 qpdf
-rwxrwxr-x  1 root  admin     4121 22 Jun 20:16 rtags

Best
paul
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Dr. Paul Hewson
Editor, Teaching Statistics (www.teachingstatistics.co.uk)
Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Statistics
School of Computing and Mathematics
University of Plymouth
Drake Circus
Plymouth PL4 8AA

tel (01752) 586870
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#
On Oct 20, 2012, at 07:40 , Paul Hewson wrote:

            
It still might not be you... 

I think you still need to tell us a few more details, e.g. the OSX version. However, since you say that the macbook is "institutional", is there a chance that someone tampered with permissions for your login shell? or that the OS has "security features" in place that are getting in the way? Is, BTW, any of this stuff on networked or otherwise specially mounted drives? -- sometimes there's a noexec setting for the entire drive. 

Can you do this:

~ pd$ /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/exec/x86_64/R
Fatal error: R home directory is not defined

(It has to fail like that as the environment is not set up properly, but it would be informative as to whether the program can be started at all.)

  
    
#
Hi,
OS X Lion 10.7.4 (11E53)
mac book pro 15 in ch Mid 2010
Entirely stand alone, no networked drives.   I **should** have admin
rights (I can install software for example), but the nuances of
permissions go beyond both myself at the moment as well as the tech
support I've been pestering.

If I run
/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/exec/x86_64/R
I get the permission denied error

If I run
sudo /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/bin/exec/x86_64/R
I get the Fatal error: R home directory is not defined.

(as I'm missing tab completion I also cd'd into /Lib etc. /x86_64 where
sudo R ran fine.

Best
Paul
On 20/10/12 07:27, peter dalgaard wrote:

  
    
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On Oct 20, 2012, at 1:40 AM, Paul Hewson wrote:

            
Are you running any anti-virus software or other haxxies? The thing is that R will not show any dialog box since it is a console tool, so the dialog box has to come from some other software that may be causing the issue in the first place ...
1 day later
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Right, thanks. Finally sank in.
The dialog box looks to me like the Finder icon (I don't know what that means yet, but it doesn't look like the gatekeeper thing which is in newer versions of os x ).   There is sophos on the system and it beyond me to do anything I think.   Anyway, you've given me something to discus with our technical support (like turning sophos off for 2 minutes while I check if that's the problem).   I will email back when it's fixed.

Thanks
Paul
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Paul Hewson
Editor, Teaching Statistics (www.teachingstatistics.co.uk)
Associate Professor (SL) Statistics
School of Computing & Maths
Plymouth University
Drake Circus
Plymouth PL4 8AA
++44 (0)1752 586870
On 20 Oct 2012, at 13:34, "Simon Urbanek" <simon.urbanek at r-project.org> wrote: