MAC: Locked out of /usr/bin

Question

I have mountain lion and was fiddling with permissions on /usr/bin. I am locked out and get permission denied errors when I do ls -al on that folder.

I cannot use sudo as it says sudo not found. I can see the sudo folder under /usr/bin but I guess the permission and ownership issues is making it inaccessible.

Any pointer would be appreciated.

why where you messing with permissions on /usr/bin? Theres zero reason to do that.... — prodigitalson, Dec 31 '12 at 21:02
Installing some gems and needed to create a symlink to the gcc-4.2 installed with brew. — , Dec 31 '12 at 21:05

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 31 '12 at 20:57

If it is just a permissions issue (and not ownership) you should be able to use Finder to fix it. Use Go to Folder (Shift-Command-G), go to /usr, click on the bin folder, bring up the information window (Command-I), click the lock in the lower right corner and authenticate, and then adjust the permissions.

They should look like this:

enter image description here

score -2 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 31 '12 at 21:06

Seams like you royally screwed up. ^^, Find a magnet and with a steady hand rewrite permissions on your hard drive. This will take a really steady hand to execute as a minor error might damage the other contents of your hard drive.

Alternatively you could repair disk permissions like this: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1452

MAC: Locked out of /usr/bin

2 Answers2