We need to review a few concepts to clearly understand how ownership and permissions are managed in macOS. More specifically, we need to understand what permissions and ownership are, the types of permissions macOS uses, and how they work in macOS. At the end of this section, you will be able to describe the macOS permissions and ownership model.
In this section, we will explore the following topics:
- What are ownership and permissions in macOS?
- Access Control Lists (ACLs)
- Access hierarchical rules
- File flags
- macOS's filesystem security policy
Let's begin by understanding what ownership and permissions are in the context of macOS.
What are ownership and permissions in macOS?
A "permission" is the granted right to perform an operation, which can vary from executing code to accessing certain data or resources, such as files and folders. macOS uses a combination of the UNIX ownership and permission model, POSIX Access Control Lists...
