Copying from a Time Machine backup…

So…through some git experimentation trying to erase the history of a file, I committed and pushed to a local repository, which turned out not to be my intention. Instead of figuring out how to fix it the git way, I thought I’d just copy yesterday’s Time Machine backup of the repository. Instead of using Time Machine app, I mounted the backup disk, and cp -R‘d the directory. A ls-l told me permissions and user:group ownership were correct…though I did notice an @ tacked onto the end drwxr-xr-x@…

Insufficient Permission?

Returning to the project a few days later, git pushing a new tag to the local repository didn’t work, with a permission error:

insufficient permission for adding an object to repository database etc.

WTF, permissions and ownership are right. Google, Google, git, permissions, etc. and no luck. Then, brilliant insight - don’t ignore the information presented to me. What exactly does the @ on the end of drwxr-xr-x@ mean anyway?

OS X Extended Attributes

Copying directly from the Time Machine backup also copied extended attributes and ACLs, which I definitely didn’t want. The command

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xattr my_repository.git

told me things like com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot and com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot were attached to the directory and it’s files. To remove:

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sudo xattr -d -r 'com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineOldestSnapshot' my_repository.git
sudo xattr -d -r 'com.apple.metadata:_kTimeMachineNewestSnapshot' my_repository.git

To learn more about xattr:

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xattr -h

OS X ACLs

Now ls -l gave me drwxr-xr-x+, with the + meaning the directory has ACL (access control lists) attached to it. Needless to say, I still couldn’t push to the repository, even though the standard user:group permissions said I could. To remove the ACL restrictions:

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sudo chmod -R -a# 0 my_repository

Finally, ls -l returns plain old drwxr-xr-x, and I could push to my repository. What a wonderful waste of time!