How to fix homebrew permissions?

Question

I have uninstalled and installed Homebrew 3 times now because it seems to never allow me to install anything as it denies me permissions at the end of most installations.

As an example I will post this libjpeg download scenario that I'm currently facing.

I try to install libjpeg and get:

$ brew install libjpeg
==> Downloading https://downloads.sf.net/project/machomebrew/Bottles/jpeg-8d.mountain_lion.bottle.1.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Library/Caches/Homebrew/jpeg-8d.mountain_lion.bottle.1.tar.gz
==> Pouring jpeg-8d.mountain_lion.bottle.1.tar.gz
Warning: Could not link jpeg. Unlinking...
Error: The brew link step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
You can try again using `brew link jpeg'
Error: Permission denied - /usr/local/opt/jpeg

'brew link jpeg' results in

Error: Permission denied - /usr/local/opt/jpeg

Here is what my brew doctor reads

$ brew doctor
Warning: "config" scripts exist outside your system or Homebrew directories.
./configure scripts often look for *-config scripts to determine if
software packages are installed, and what additional flags to use when
compiling and linking.

Having additional scripts in your path can confuse software installed via
Homebrew if the config script overrides a system or Homebrew provided
script of the same name. We found the following "config" scripts:

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python-config
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2-config
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7-config
Warning: You have unlinked kegs in your Cellar
Leaving kegs unlinked can lead to build-trouble and cause brews that depend on
those kegs to fail to run properly once built. Run brew link on these:

jpeg

This permission issue has been making it impossible to use brew on anything and I would really appreciate any suggestions.

Answer 1

I was able to solve the problem by using chown on the folder:

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local

Also you'll (most probably) have to do the same on /Library/Caches/Homebrew:

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /Library/Caches/Homebrew

Apparently I had used sudo before in a way that altered my folder permission on /usr/local, from here on forward all installations with brew have proven to be successful.

This answer comes courtesy of gitHub's homebrew issue tracker

Answer 2

New command for users on macOS High Sierra as it is not possible to chown on /usr/local:

bash/zsh:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*

fish:

sudo chown -R (whoami) (brew --prefix)/*

Reference: Can't chown /usr/local in High Sierra

Answer 3

As a first option to whomever lands here like I did, follow whatever this suggests you to do:

brew doctor

It's the safest path, and amongst other things, it suggested me to:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local

which solved that permissions issue.

The OP did just that but apparently didn't get the above suggestion; you might, and it's always better to start there, and only then look for non trivial solutions if it didn't help.

Answer 4

If you're on OSX High Sierra, /usr/local can no longer be chown'd. You can use:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)/*

Answer 5

I didn't want to muck around with folder permissions yet so I did the following:

brew doctor
brew upgrade
brew cleanup

I was then able to continue installing my other brew formula successfully.

Answer 6

I did not have the /usr/local/Frameworks folder, so this fixed it for me

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/Frameworks
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Frameworks

The first line creates a new Frameworks folder for homebrew (brew) to use. The second line gives that folder your current user permissions, which are sufficient.

Used commands are as follows:

mkdir - make directories [-p no error if existing, make parent directories as needed]

chown - change file owner and group [-R operate on files and directories recursively]

whoami - print effective userid

I have OSX High Sierra

Answer 7

I had this issue .. A working solution is to change ownership of /usr/local to current user instead of root by:

  sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin /usr/local

But really this is not a proper way. Mainly if your machine is a server or multiple-user.

My suggestion is to change the ownership as above and do whatever you want to implement with Brew .. ( update, install ... etc ) then reset ownership back to root as:

  sudo chown -R root:admin /usr/local

Thats would solve the issue and keep ownership set in proper set.

Answer 8

This worked for me:

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local/Cellar/*
brew cleanup

Answer 9

Command from top-voted answer not work for me.

It got output:

chown: /usr/{my_username}dmin: illegal user name

This command works fine (group for /usr/local was admin already):

sudo chown -R $USER /usr/local

Answer 10

If you would like a slightly more targeted approach than the blanket chown -R, you may find this fix-homebrew script useful:

#!/bin/sh

[ -e `which brew` ] || {
    echo Homebrew doesn\'t appear to be installed.
    exit -1
}

BREW_ROOT="`dirname $(dirname $(which brew))`"
BREW_GROUP=admin
BREW_DIRS=".git bin sbin Library Cellar share etc lib opt CONTRIBUTING.md README.md SUPPORTERS.md"

echo "This script will recursively update the group on the following paths"
echo "to the '${BREW_GROUP}' group and make them group writable:"
echo ""

for dir in $BREW_DIRS ; do {
    [ -e "$BREW_ROOT/$dir" ] && echo "    $BREW_ROOT/$dir "
} ; done

echo ""
echo "It will also stash (and clean) any changes that are currently in the homebrew repo, so that you have a fresh blank-slate."
echo ""

read -p 'Press any key to continue or CTRL-C to abort.'

echo "You may be asked below for your login password."
echo ""

# Non-recursively update the root brew path.
echo Updating "$BREW_ROOT" . . .
sudo chgrp "$BREW_GROUP" "$BREW_ROOT"
sudo chmod g+w "$BREW_ROOT"

# Recursively update the other paths.
for dir in $BREW_DIRS ; do {
    [ -e "$BREW_ROOT/$dir" ] && (
        echo Recursively updating "$BREW_ROOT/$dir" . . .
        sudo chmod -R g+w "$BREW_ROOT/$dir"
        sudo chgrp -R "$BREW_GROUP" "$BREW_ROOT/$dir"
    )
} ; done

# Non-distructively move any git crud out of the way
echo Stashing changes in "$BREW_ROOT" . . .
cd $BREW_ROOT
git add .
git stash
git clean -d -f Library

echo Finished.

Instead of doing a chmod to your user, it gives the admin group (to which you presumably belong) write access to the specific directories in /usr/local that homebrew uses. It also tells you exactly what it intends to do before doing it.

Answer 11

I resolved my issue with these commands:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/Cellar
sudo mkdir /usr/local/opt
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Cellar
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/opt

Answer 12

In my case the /usr/local/Frameworks didn't even exist, so I did:

sudo mkdir /usr/local/Frameworks
sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/Frameworks

And then everything worked as expected.

Answer 13

Firstly, with MacOS Catalina, the basic ways to change the ownership of /usr/local are no longer allowed. For example:

$ sudo chown -R "$USER":wheel /usr/local
Password:
chown: /usr/local: Operation not permitted
$ sudo chown -R "$USER" /usr/local
chown: /usr/local: Operation not permitted
$ sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local
chown: /usr/local: Operation not permitted

Hence, the popular answers above cannot be used. Secondly, however, taking a step back, if the main concern is to install or upgrade Homebrew, rather than wanting to change the permissions for /usr/local per se, then it may be overkill (like taking a sledgehammer to hammer a nail) to change the permissions for /usr/local. It affects your whole machine and other software may also be using /usr/local. For example, I have files related to maven and mySQL in /usr/local.

A more precise solution is to follow the instructions to install Homebrew, given at the Homebrew GitHub site, namely

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install.sh)"

which installs Homebrew inside /usr/local without changing ownership of /usr/local itself. Instead, Cellar, Caskroom, Frameworks, Homebrew, etc. are installed inside /usr/local. This seems to be a more elegant, precise solution in my opinion.

Answer 14

This solved the issue fore me.

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /Users/$USER/Library/Caches/Homebrew
sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local

Answer 15

For a multiuser Mac, this worked for me:

sudo chown -R $(whoami):admin $(brew --prefix)/*

Answer 16

All of these suggestions may work. In the latest version of brew doctor, better suggestions were made though.

Firstly - fix the mess you have probably already made of /usr/local by running this in the command line:

sudo chown -R root:wheel /usr/local

Then take ownership of the paths that should be specifically for this user:

sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/lib /usr/local/sbin /usr/local/var /usr/local/Frameworks /usr/local/lib/pkgconfig /usr/local/share/locale

All of this information is available if you run sudo brew update and then read all of the warnings and errors you will run into...

Answer 17

For me, it worked after

brew doctor

Change permission commands resulted in another error

chown: /usr/local: Operation not permitted

Answer 18

On MacOS Mojave, I did not have permission to chown the /usr/local folder either (sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local).

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local/* did work for me however, altering the permissions of everything within the local folder.

Hopefully this will help others with the same issue.

Answer 19

There's a killer script on github that fixes perms on /usr/local and brew directories to be accessible by anyone who is a member of the 'admin' group.

https://gist.github.com/jaibeee/9a4ea6aa9d428bc77925

This is a better solution than the chosen answer, since if you chown the /usr/local/___ directories to $USER, then you break any other admin users of homebrew on that machine.

Here are the guts of the script at the time I posted this:

chgrp -R admin /usr/local
chmod -R g+w /usr/local

chgrp -R admin /Library/Caches/Homebrew
chmod -R g+w /Library/Caches/Homebrew

chgrp -R admin /opt/homebrew-cask
chmod -R g+w /opt/homebrew-cask

Answer 20

Actually it's really simple, execute this command: brew doctor

And it will tell you what to do, to fix permission issues, for example in my case:

This was the problem:

Warning: The following directories are not writable by your user:
/usr/local/share/man/man5
/usr/local/share/man/man7

And this was the solution:

You should change the ownership of these directories to your user.
  sudo chown -R $(whoami) /usr/local/share/man/man5 /usr/local/share/man/man7

Answer 21

I'm on Catalina and I got this error:

touch: /usr/local/Homebrew/.git/FETCH_HEAD: Permission denied
touch: /usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/homebrew/homebrew-cask/.git/FETCH_HEAD: Permission denied
fatal: Unable to create '/usr/local/Homebrew/.git/index.lock': Permission denied
fatal: Unable to create '/usr/local/Homebrew/.git/index.lock': Permission denied

I only needed to chown the Homebrew directory

sudo chown -R "$USER":admin /usr/local/Homebrew

Answer 22

sudo chown -R "$USER" "$(brew --prefix)/"

Working for Apple silicone machines.

Answer 23

uninstall brew & re-install with the below command to ensure the linking to the brew github and associated permissions to the local folder work correctly:

/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

This worked perfectly. No mucking around with permissions myself, just reinstalled Homebrew and it works!

source: https://gist.github.com/irazasyed/7732946#gistcomment-2298740

Answer 24

cd /usr/local && sudo chown -R $(whoami) bin etc include lib sbin share var opt Cellar Frameworks

Answer 25

If you happen to have multiple accounts on your mac, chances are, your current account belongs to different user group as the primary account that originally owned /usr/local meaning that none of the solutions above will work.

You can check that by trying to ls -la /usr/local and see what user and group that have permissions to write on the directory. In my case it was root wheel. It may be root admin.

I solved it by adding the current user to the group that primary account has by using the following command.

sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a $(whoami) -t user admin
sudo dseditgroup -o edit -a $(whoami) -t user wheel

There after it worked like a charm. Hopefully it helps someone out there.

Answer 26

2024 answer

Run eval "$(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)" if you are on Apple Silicon or run eval "$(/usr/local/bin/brew shellenv)" on Intel

and then you will safely be able to run brew install somepackage

These instructions are coming directly from the package installer.

DO NOT use sudo chown or anything else. homebrew shouldn't need sudo (and their webpage mentions it)

Answer 27

If you don't have the latest Homebrew: I "fixed" this in the past by forcing Homebrew to run as root, which could only be done by changing the ownership of the Homebrew executables to root. At some point, they removed this feature.

And I know they'll give lots of warnings saying it shouldn't run as root, but c'mon, it doesn't work properly otherwise.

Answer 28

I tried everything on this page, I ended up using this solution:

brew uninstall --force brew-cask; brew untap $tap_name; brew update; brew cleanup; brew cask cleanup;

My situation was similar to the OP, however my issue was specifically caused by running sudo with brew cask, and then getting my password incorrect. After this, I was stuck with permissions preventing the installation.

Answer 29

To resolve errors for Brew permissions on folder run

brew prune

This will resolve the issues & we don't have to chown any directories.

Answer 30

In my case, I has having problems removing and reinstalling SaltStack.

After running:

ls -lah /usr/local/Cellar/salt/

I noticed that the group owner was "staff". (BTW, I'm running macOS Mojave version 10.14.3.) The staff group could be related to my workplace configuration, but I don't really know. Regardless, I preserved the group to prevent myself from breaking anything further.

I then ran:

sudo chown -R "$USER":staff /usr/local/Cellar/salt/

After that, I was successfully able to remove it with this command (not as root):

brew uninstall --force salt