Insecure world writable dir /Users/username in PATH, mode 040777 when running Ruby commands

Question

When I run Ruby commands like gem -v I get this error:

/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin/gem:4: warning: Insecure world writable dir /Users/kristoffer in PATH, mode 040777

1.6.2

First of all I don't understand what this means. /Users/kristoffer is not in my path according to echo $PATH. The result of echo $PATH is:

/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p180@global/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.2-p180/bin:/Users/kristoffer/.rvm/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin

As you can see, the PATH is pretty clean. Just the default path + what RVM added.

I've seen the other posts similar to this where the recommended way to solve the issue is to run chmod go-w path/to/folder

However, I'm pretty sure that it's a bad idea to make my Home folder non-writeable, right? I've repaired permissions using Disk Utility and it didn't find anything wrong with the permissions on my Home folder.

Any idea of what the problem is and how I can fix it?

Solution 1

Your home folder should only be writable by you, not by anyone else. The reason gem is complaining about this is that you have folders in your PATH that are inside your (insecure) home folder, and that means that anyone who wants to could hack you by renaming/moving your .rvm folder and replacing it with an impostor.

To fix your home folder, run chmod go-w /Users/kristoffer. If there are any other insecure folders on the way to anything in your PATH, you should fix them similarly.

BTW, the reason that Disk Utility didn't repair this is that it only repairs files installed as part of the OS (see Apple's KB article on the subject). There is an option to repair home folder permissions if you boot from the install DVD and run Password Reset from the Utilities menu, but I'm not sure if it resets the permissions themselves or just ownership.

Solution 2

I kept getting this in my prompt.

I couldn't get it quite right with my command prompt but this ended up working.

Solution 3

Recently this just happened to me and it has to do with a bug in upgrading to Mac OSX 10.9.3. Looks like the upgrade changes the permissons to the User folder. Here's an explanation and a fix:

http://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/05/16/users-folder-being-hidden-with-itunes-11-2-installed-and-find-my-mac-enabled/

Solution 4

chmod 755 /Users/<username>

Should fix the problem...

Solution 5

it says that the directory Users/username is insecure, you can fix that by running sudo chmod go-w Users/username

View more solutions

Comments

[Admin]

Ah, thanks! That fixed the problem. I was worried about running chmod go-w because I thought it removed write permissions for all users, including me.

[NDBoost]

Shouldn't this have a -R for recursive?

[Gordon Davisson]

@Mike: No, that would break any folders that're supposed to be writable by others (mainly ~/Public/Drop Box). If there are any other inappropriately-writable folders inside his home, they will have to be fixed as well, but -R would be (slightly) overkill.

[Alex Le]

Thanks for the screenshot! It works. When I migrated my HDD to the SSD somehow "everyone" can Read&Write my user folder. Switching everyone to No Access fixes the warning.

[Ckt22]

I run chmod 755 /Users/[my name], but I got the msg chmod: cannot access '/Users/[my name]': No such file or directory

[Ckt22]

I run chmod go-w /Users/[my name], but I got the msg chmod: cannot access '/Users/[my name]': No such file or directory

[Gordon Davisson]

@Ckt22 You need to use whatever the actual path to your home directory is. You can use echo ~ to print the path, or just use chmod go-w ~ and it should take care of it for you.

[Ckt22]

@GordonDavisson I run sudo chmod go-w ~ /home/keaton, and then run rails s, the result is still stuck in the same problem: /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/rails/app_rails_loader.rb:39: warning: Insecure world writable dir /mnt/c in PATH, mode 040777 /usr/bin/ruby2.5: warning: shebang line ending with \r may cause problems Your Ruby version is 2.5.1, but your Gemfile specified 2.6.6

[Gordon Davisson]

@Ckt22 According to the error message, the problem isn't the permissions on your home directory, it's /mnt/c that's the problem. This sounds like you're using Ubuntu under Windows, which I'm not familiar with. Also, the shebang error indicates you have at least one file with Windows-style line endings (rather than Unix-style), which is likely to cause trouble.

[Ckt22]

@GordonDavisson Yes, I using Ubuntu under Windows, What file should I modify or fix?

[Ckt22]

After I changed the default Ruby version of RVM to the version required by the repo, the problem was solved. unknown reason.