Changing the default Umask on OSX Leopard

We use Macfuse to connect to our office development services. It lets us mount remote folders via SSFHS. The problem is that when we create a file via this connection, the default permissions are missing the group write bit, and so other users who connect to this system can’t write to them.

There is a fix available for OS X 10.5.3 and above – http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2202

One of our developers at Fubra has released a small package that automatically fixes the umask settings this for you. You can download it here. 

Or if you want to do it yourself via the command line, I’ve written some brief instructions. Basically, it involves 2 steps.

1. Open up the Terminal application, and then create a file called /etc/launchd-user.conf 
2. Add a line to the file containing the umask setting you want, in our case this was umask 002 

Commands

sudo vim /etc/launchd-user.conf

umask 002

NB: This sets the umask for every user on the system. So be careful what you choose!