I'm using OSX 10.12 and I recently encountered a weird problem. If i install a package with Homebrew the package can not be linked because the permissions are not correct. After running brew doctor
i get the following message:
Warning: The following directories are not writable:
/usr/local/sbin
This can happen if you "sudo make install" software that isn't managed
by Homebrew. If a formula tries to write a file to this directory, the
install will fail during the link step.
You should change the ownership and permissions of these directories.
back to your user account.
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/sbin
After running a lot of different permission commands i found on the web i'm still struggling with this problem. I tried (at least) the following commands
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/sbin
sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local
sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /Library/Caches/Homebrew
Non of the used commando's where working. I tried brew docter
after every permission command but nothing seems to work. Then i thought it should have a look at the permissions using ls -la
in the usr/local directory. I noticed that the sbin folder is symlinked. See the list below for my permissions in the usr/local folder. Not sure if this is good or not?? Could this be the reason of my problem and how could i fix this??
drwxrwxr-x 16 myusername staff 544 Oct 10 16:10 .
drwxr-xr-x@ 10 root wheel 340 Mar 28 2017 ..
drwxrwxr-x 2 myusername staff 68 Oct 10 16:10 Caskroom
drwxr-xr-x 48 myusername staff 1632 Oct 10 16:47 Cellar
drwxr-xr-x 2 myusername staff 68 Dec 8 2016 Frameworks
drwxr-xr-x 17 myusername staff 578 Oct 10 15:20 Homebrew
drwxr-xr-x 198 myusername staff 6732 Oct 10 16:48 bin
drwxr-xr-x 18 myusername staff 612 Oct 10 16:48 etc
drwxr-xr-x 65 myusername staff 2210 Oct 10 16:48 include
drwxr-xr-x 244 myusername staff 8296 Oct 10 16:48 lib
drwxr-xr-x 3 myusername staff 102 Dec 12 2014 man
drwxr-xr-x 57 myusername staff 1938 Oct 10 16:51 opt
drwxr-xr-x 3 myusername staff 102 Feb 14 2017 remotedesktop
lrwxr-xr-x 1 myusername staff 9 Jun 9 2013 sbin -> /usr/sbin
drwxr-xr-x 18 myusername staff 612 Oct 10 16:48 share
drwxr-xr-x 10 myusername staff 340 Oct 10 15:28 var
This is the output of the brew --config
command
HOMEBREW_VERSION: 1.3.5
ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew.git
HEAD: 91ab116ace7f4f97d3440190463c93be9ec6d675
Last commit: 2 days ago
Core tap ORIGIN: https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-core
Core tap HEAD: a57a3704b4e7a8dcb311cf2309d485ad93d4977d
Core tap last commit: 4 hours ago
HOMEBREW_PREFIX: /usr/local
HOMEBREW_REPOSITORY: /usr/local/Homebrew
HOMEBREW_CELLAR: /usr/local/Cellar
HOMEBREW_BOTTLE_DOMAIN: https://homebrew.bintray.com
CPU: octa-core 64-bit ivybridge
Homebrew Ruby: 2.3.3 => /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Homebrew/vendor/portable-ruby/2.3.3/bin/ruby
Clang: 9.0 build 900
Git: 2.13.5 => /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/usr/bin/git
Perl: /usr/bin/perl
Python: /usr/bin/python
Ruby: /usr/bin/ruby => /System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/2.0/usr/bin/ruby
Java: N/A
macOS: 10.12.6-x86_64
Xcode: 9.0
CLT: 9.0.0.0.1.1504363082
X11: N/A
This are the permissions of the sbin folder that is symlinked
drwxr-xr-x 246 root wheel 8364 Aug 4 02:08 sbin
Running brew doctor
should tell you:
Warning: The following directories do not exist: /usr/local/sbin
Just run:
sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/sbin
and:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/sbin
I experienced this error on Mac OS Big Sur (11.5.1). I run the following to fix it:
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/sbin
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