Permissions problems

**defu** · 05-30-2005

Right, so i was updating my gentoo system with "emerge -uD world" and when it finished i found that when i logged into any non-root account i didn't have access to /dev/null. When i change permissions on /dev/null using chmod 666 it keeps the permissions until i reboot, then they revert. Also when I'm in my gui, xfce4, i cant get xterm or xfterm4 to start and when i run xmms i get an "failed to open ALSA 1.2.10 output plugin" error, which i've never gotten before. I assume it's something wrong with permission because when i login as root everything works perfectly.

Any help you guys could offer would be much appreciated, I'm still more or less a newbie to the linux world. Thanks.

**variant** · 05-31-2005

you are hopfully using udev if so make sure "/etc/udev/permissions.d/50-udev.permissions" contains the line:

null:root:root:0666

in the section titled #Memory devices

also under #audio devices check that permissions are 0660

have you run etc-update recently? do you have config files that need updating or have you accidently overwritten some config?

**genesus** · 05-31-2005

hmm, instead of 666 try 777 on /dev. Does this problem happen when logged into root as well?

**variant** · 05-31-2005

why? 0777? 0666 should work fine. 0777 would mean that anyone and everyone can have full read write and execute access to /dev/null

**genesus** · 05-31-2005

i had to use 777 once on my laptop after my very first gentoo install when I had the same problem, it got it working long enough for me to do some pressing work, and then later on I manually reset permissions--took some time but...--interestingly enough, that is the only gentoo install that I ever had that problem with

**variant** · 05-31-2005

ok, but for this problem 0666 should be fine.. its the default setting and works on everyone elses system.

**shadowmite** · 08-16-2005

I am having the EXACT same problems, after the EXACT same command... I checked the file you mentioned, it has all permissions correct, however every reboot the problem comes back...

Anyone got some insight into this? Or do the gentoo build scripts have serious bugs that no one has found yet?

**bigtomrodney** · 08-16-2005

Do the permissions change back after reboot, or is the problem there and the permissions have remained?

**shadowmite** · 08-16-2005

I change the permissions once the system is booted, but after every reboot they go back to strange things. 640 for /dev/null... Sound does not work for any user either, but I can't find why on that one yet. Furthermore, xterm shells can not be opened by any user other than root.

I have searched every init file I can think of, and can't find ANYTHING that's setting this permission. I thought I knew linux, but this one has be going nuts...

Please someone give me ideas...

(not including a re-install please)

**variant** · 08-18-2005

is your user in the correct user groups?

users,audio,cdrom,wheel,games,video

are important ones for a start

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