Arch Linux

vfbsilva

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2010-04-08

Posts: 103

Pacman error upon updating packages

Folks I found similar errors on the forum bur no official fix. So here i go, whenever I try to update a package I get the following warning.

warning: directory permissions differ on usr/
filesystem: 777  package: 755

What should I do?

Regards.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,652

Re: Pacman error upon updating packages

Well, nothing -- maybe.
I've no idea your experience level, so a brief explanation:
My system has the permissions for /usr set to 755.  That means everyone can read and execute from there, but only the owner, root, may write

ewaller@odin:~ 1102 %ls -ld /usr
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Aug  9 23:24 /usr
ewaller@odin:~ 1103 %

Each digit in the number is an octal representation of 3 bits - The MSB is read permission, the second is write permission, the LSB is execute permission.  The first digit is for the owner, the second for the group, and the last is other.  Thus rwxr-xr-x means the owner can do everything, group can read and execute, and other can read and execute.

On your system, 777 means everyone can write to the directory.  Not very secure, but it is your system.  Somehow you have changed it from the default.

The Pacman message was just a warning, not an error.  No action is mandatory, it just wants you to think about it (pardon the anthropomorphism)

Last edited by ewaller (2011-08-26 04:05:37)

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vfbsilva

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2010-04-08

Posts: 103

Re: Pacman error upon updating packages

Hi thanks for the fast reply. But I know it is unsafe hence i'm worried. I'm fairly well experienced in linux. But I was afraid of just chmod -R 755 /usr as this could provide MAJOR headaches. Can I do it safely? Should I do it? It is strange cause I never use my system as root except to evoke pacman so something strange is going on.

wonder

Developer

From: Bucharest, Romania

Registered: 2006-07-05

Posts: 5,941

Website

Re: Pacman error upon updating packages

why -R when a simple chmod 755 /usr is enough?

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vfbsilva

Member

From: Brazil

Registered: 2010-04-08

Posts: 103

Re: Pacman error upon updating packages

why -R when a simple chmod 755 /usr is enough?

I tough it  was related to the dir of each package hence the -R.  Thanks again for the quick reply folks.