macOS and File Owner information I'm trying to build a portable user and one of the ways I was thinking of doing is through a symlink in /Users that will point to external flash drive.
If I have two machines and I make a user with a same username, are those users the same when it comes to encoding permissions and owner information of the files?
If not, does anyone have any pointers or ideas on how else I can do it?
Maybe there is a way recreate/migrate existing user to another machine and basically replicating possible IDs used by the system to check permissions.
No, the name is not the crucial factor. Each user account has an ID number (UID). The first-created user account is normally number 501, then next is 502, etc.
If Mac1 has account called &quot;Dave&quot;, but has a UID of 502, then files saved on that Mac will be considered a different user account when used on account &quot;Dave&quot; #501 on Mac2. This will cause problems with file ownership and read/write access.
Also, bear in mind that if the OS can't find the user folder at boot, it will recreate a new empty account with that name in the default location.
(If you're looking to sync files between two different Macs, there are better ways of doing it.)