And They Said the Mac Was Intuitive
Well, it definitely isn’t in one regard. I was able to delete my usr (Unix) folder. Yes, my usr folder. How did this happen? Well, one of the programs I installed caused this lovely little Unix hidden folder to become exposed. Knowing that I already have a Users folder and the multiple Library folder(s), it seemed reasonable to delete it.
WRONG.
Okay, first let’s try to figure out why this folder was exposed. I have a Maxtor Fusion NAS to store photos, music, data, etc. for both laptops on the home network. The Fusion has a built-in Web server to share data with external users. The Fusion requires a dynamic DNS. I use NO-IP.com to manage this for me (and because it is free).
The NO-IP.com Mac client is great in managing the dynamic DNS. Further, the NO-IP.com folks are great for support. Unfortunately, it seems that this little app is the culprit in exposing my usr folder (bug filed—received a reply—didn’t solve problem).
So, what happened? Well, yesterday I wanted to clean up my Mac by removing apps and using Cocktail to clean up caches and such. While perusing my hard disk, I saw this folder and thought, “I don’t need this” (as mentioned above). Wrong thought indeed.
This caused some very unexpected results. Once the Finder began to delete the folder, the machine locked up and my apps began to self-terminate. I forced a reboot by powering down and then powering up the Mac again, which resulted in the spinning cursor of death.
I then called my close friend Phil who manages Mac IT support at Children’s Hospital in Oakland, CA. Well, he confirmed the situation (including my limited knowledge) and provided the recommendation on how to get my system restored. Within four hours and after reinstalling the OS, life was normalized.
What did I learn? The usr folder is a UNIX folder that should not be made visible. And yet, mine was visible (and with the reinstall of NO-IP’s client, it is again made visible). Further, this is a highly critical folder containing key information about the OS.
Was this folder mentioned in the Mac documentation? Nope. Was this folder name something easily discovered online? Reasonably so, although I didn’t think to go looking until after the debacle.
Imagine if I was a novice user…yikes! Support calls, yelling, crying, and more. Woohoo! What a party. I still consider myself to be relatively new to the Mac, although I do have familiarity from yore. Nevertheless, this is not the intuitive and simple way Macs should work.
OS X’s underlying architecture provides amazing power given that it is based in Unix. However, do Mom & Pop care about this? Nope. Do they care that it just works? Yup. Do they care what the usr folder is? Nope. Do they even want to know about it? Nope. You get the picture.
For those who know much more than I, enjoy the laugh at my expense. For those who know less, beware of your own mistakes. You can still cripple a Macintosh computer.
Lastly…
Anyone out there know how to fix the permissions on my usr folder so I can hide it again? And yes, I did repair permissions using Disk Utility (as well as Cocktail).
M
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Slashdot
StumbleUpon
Comments
if you don’t know what you are doing, leave your hidden files/folders hidden. Sometimes you have to take accountability for your own mistakes. If you drop your laptop while carrying it down the stairs with one hand (cause the other is holding a cup of coffee) and it smashes into a million pieces, will you blame god for creating gravity?
Mac users aren’t as clever as they oftentimes believe themselves to be.
just read the article and Wow!... you’re stupid! :/
O.K. I agree with most of the posters so I feel no need to get further into that. It was a mistake and it is called a stupid mistake because of the consequences. I’m more interested in the making of the mistake.
What was the precise role of Cocktail in this ?
Did Cocktail decide to delete ?
I once felt an urge to delete the desktopDB, so I made it visible, trashed it, and restarted, and it worked. Warning, I’m no expert, it seemed intuitively the right thing, and it worked. So I’m no expert, I was probably lucky that my assumption that it would behave like in OS8 was right.
So this is a good article. It’s certainly more interesting than articles about what apple should do in 2030.
So how did cocktail contribute ?
I agree with the person that said that the tone of the article sparked all the negative comments. To me it seems that the NO-IP app along with a pebkac error are the cause for your problem. The OS can not be blamed at all which is what your article appears to do.
My concern is this NO-IP app and why it is being used. All you need is port forwarding on your router to the webserver on the NAS. Why do you need to install an app on your Mac or any computer within your home network? Even if you use their service to point your domain name to your IP address, why do you need to install anything? I assume it’s because you are not given a static IP address by your ISP. While this may be the case, these ip addresses have the effect of being static because DHCP keeps assigning the same address. My ip address has been the same since I got broadband two years ago and I can point my domain to my home network by simply editing my domain registration. Since NO-IP is “unhiding” things on the Mac, I would look into whether it is also “sharing” information on your Mac with external users. I think you should really look into this as I believe that you are using something you don’t need to solve a problem that doesn’t exist that is probably causing security issues you are not aware of.
You admit you are wrong, yet you are trigger happy to blame Apple.
What a tool you are.
You’re about to do something really stupid. Cancel, or Allow?
I think you need to rename this article. It comes off as you’re blaming apple, hence all the flames.
You basically sound like its apple’s fault for allowing this to happen. Yet you admit it was your own stupid mistake. I mean, you deleted a folder called ‘usr’ because you have a folder called ‘Users’ ?
Isnt that like saying… “I deleted REALLY_IMPORTANT_FILE_1 because I had a REALLY_IMPORTANT_FILE_2 and their names seemed so similar? Surely I didnt need both? Waaah I blame the OS vendor!!!”
I’m surprised you’ve even used a computer before to make a mistake like that.
Welcome to the realm of semi-knowledgeable idiots. Enjoy your time at this stage. You’re going to bleed a lot, until you develop a clue.
Warren
lol you noob - This is why Apple owners are constantly made fun of, they don’t bother or have to learn about their own machines and then go whining to the real technical people when they break it. Good job confirming the stereotype…NOOB.
This article made my day. Thank you.
This story is almost as priceless… and stop me if you’ve heard this before… as the person who cut their 5 1/4” floppy down to 3 1/2” to fit it in their “new disk drive”.
Just awesome. Again, thank you.
Weird, almost the same thing happened to a friend of mine, but with his CAR instead:
http://porpoisehead.net/misc/mac_users.html
Deleting anything other than files you created or applications you install is a stupid rookie mistake. You deserve your fate moron!
Hi Matthew,
I hate to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but it seems that for as much as you claim responsibility, you seem equally eager to point out where Apple could have improved.
You claim that the /usr folder and all other things Unix should be completely transparent to “normal” users, but point out the lack of documentation on it. If, under normal operating conditions, the directory is never visible anyway, why would it be documented? Why would Apple trouble the user with the fact that it even exists?
Clearly we can all agree that the problem began when you introduced a 3rd party application into your system. Now, Apple has plenty of safe-guards against keeping users from doing things they shouldn’t (i.e. by hiding the /usr directory), but when you’re an application developer, there’s a general expectation that, generally speaking, you know what you’re doing.
Now, could Apple put safe-guards in place to prevent applications from tampering with system resources? I suppose, but in any piece of software (indeed, almost anything in life) the level of security has to be weighed against ease of use. Otherwise, you end up with Windows Vista, where you have to click through a dozen dialog boxes to delete a file that *you* downloaded.
So, all that being the case, to me it sort of begs the question: what was the main idea of the article? If you’re truly taking responsibility, that only leaves a couple of options (that I can see anyway). Either it was a warning to new users of what not to do, or you felt that the viewing public could use a laugh at your expense.
Actually, even was a warning, I would tend to doubt the value, since, within the context of this specific situation, there isn’t a lot to gain other than “don’t delete stuff”. The fact is, this is such a minor edge case it’s almost not even worth considering. I am a developer, and I’ve installed all kinds of stuff on my MacBook, and my /usr directory is still hidden. If I didn’t know exactly what I was doing, I wouldn’t be able to get into it.
It’s like killing your self and blaming god. WTF! Fanboy, not Fanboy even if this was a Windoze related thing, I would still have no sympathy for you.
I have to say again WTF, your article is a load of shit.
As a sysadmin, writing this on my old iBook, I have to say that this was the most painful thing to have ever read.
I am so sick and tired of the general mac populous praising how wonderful their little stylish and trendy macs are and how vastly superrior they are to “winbloze” or linux, etc. A personal computer is just a personal computer and not some item of self-validation - it’s a tool you ninny! They all follow the same basic principles and to their very core, are the most complex deviced a consumer will ever own.
A mac is not some idiot proof device. It is BSD Unix with a gorgeous and intuitive graphical inteface laid on top. It is not some self-aware, inteligent software that will prevent ignorant people from screwing things up.
This little blog entry is a wonderful real life example of your average low-end user becoming arrogant and over reaching into the boundries of high-level administration. Do you fly an airplane? Would you just jump into the cockpit and take off? Hell NO! You sit down, shut up and let the pilot do his job, while not asking questions. Same rules apply to your mac/pc/linux box/whatever.
I am all for more people learning about their hardware and software. Becoming more educated only makes you a more valuable user who can fix their own mistakes. But when you just blindly go playing admin, or what I call “click-crazy” in the Windows world, you are now doing so at your own risk.
I’ll bet you’re the type who wonders why their tech support people get snippy and abrasive when you ask for their help. Never mind the fact that it is users like you who make their lives completely miserable because you refuse to think logically about your technology, and rather prefer to think emotionally about it.
You blindly use tools you know nothing about, then complain when said tools make a change that you do not understand. You are a victom of your own willing ignorance. Go read - the interweb tubes are full of documentation on the basics of using your terminal and making permission and visibility changes to folders and files, but you actually - yes actually - READ!
God I hate users.