Insecure world writable dir /Users/username in PATH, mode 040777 when running Ruby commands

Question

When I run Ruby commands like gem -v I get this error:

/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin/gem:4: warning: Insecure world writable dir /Users/kristoffer in PATH, mode 040777

1.6.2

First of all I don't understand what this means. /Users/kristoffer is not in my path according to echo $PATH. The result of echo $PATH is:

/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180@global/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

As you can see, the PATH is pretty clean. Just the default path + what RVM added.

I've seen the other posts similar to this where the recommended way to solve the issue is to run chmod go-w path/to/folder

However, I'm pretty sure that it's a bad idea to make my Home folder non-writeable, right? I've repaired permissions using Disk Utility and it didn't find anything wrong with the permissions on my Home folder.

Any idea of what the problem is and how I can fix it?

Answer 1

Your home folder should only be writable by you, not by anyone else. The reason gem is complaining about this is that you have folders in your PATH that are inside your (insecure) home folder, and that means that anyone who wants to could hack you by renaming/moving your .rvm folder and replacing it with an impostor.

To fix your home folder, run chmod go-w /Users/kristoffer. If there are any other insecure folders on the way to anything in your PATH, you should fix them similarly.

BTW, the reason that Disk Utility didn't repair this is that it only repairs files installed as part of the OS (see Apple's KB article on the subject). There is an option to repair home folder permissions if you boot from the install DVD and run Password Reset from the Utilities menu, but I'm not sure if it resets the permissions themselves or just ownership.