I managed to Control+C out of it at a certain point. Is there a way to undo the damage?
3 Answers
There is no way for BASH to know what the opposite of the command you just ran is. You can try the following:
Create a new Admin user.
Log into the new account.
Delete the original User account, choosing leave the home folder alone.
Add the account again with the exact same short name. Choose to use the existing home folder when asked.
The permissions will be fixed when recreating the user account.
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You opt to leave the Home Folder when removing the account. Feel free to test on another account first. Mar 5, 2012 at 21:43
OSX's Disk Utility
has a repair permissions tool. It will probably get your home directory to a usable state, but it will not repair everything (see Apple Support Issue HT1452).
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2Disk Utility's permissions repair does not check user files. From the KB article: "Files that aren't installed as part of an Apple-originated installer package are not listed in a receipt and therefore are not checked." Mar 6, 2012 at 4:46
You can reset the permissions from the OS X Installer disc. This is a more complete fix of permissions than the Disk Utility repair permissions and will put the proper permissions and ACLs in place for your home folder.
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You can do it from the Recovery Partition assuming you have one. blog.chron.com/techblog/2011/09/… If you don't have the recovery partition you should be able to achieve the same with the purchased USB boot installer or a DVD created from the App Store download of Lion: macworld.com/article/161069/2011/07/…– ridogiMar 6, 2012 at 2:44