"You don't have write permissions for the /usr/bin directory." when installing Sass using the Gem command

Question

I'm on Mac and I'm trying to install Sass using the command in terminal, "sudo gem install sass". I then enter my password, and everything works fine until this pops up,

"ERROR: While executing gem ... (Gem::FilePermissionError) You don't have write permissions for the /usr/bin directory."

I do use sudo, but it still doesn't work, and it's one of those things that you can't give yourself read & write permissions to. Any ideas?

Thanks,

Wade

score 112 · Answer 1 · answered Mar 10 '18 at 20:14

112

/usr/bin is protected by system integrity protection and is not writeable by anybody even root. You need to run:

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin sass

to install into a writeable directory

answered Mar 10 '18 at 20:14

Alan Birtles

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I'm not sure this is the best solution. What if you want to install it system wide? – Dimitri May 19 '18 at 07:15
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@Dimitri /usr/local is system wide, it's where you are supposed to install software on mac os, there is no way to write to /usr/bin without disabling sip – Alan Birtles May 19 '18 at 12:18
@AlanBirtles I installed it using your command but Rails thinks the gem is missing. How to say it the gem is installed somewhere else? – Aboozar Rajabi Nov 06 '18 at 11:05
You could try setting the `GEM_PATH` environment variable – Alan Birtles Nov 06 '18 at 11:45
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Why does it use `/usr/bin` by default if it will never work? – trapper Jan 10 '20 at 08:06
@trapper presumably its just installing to the same place as ruby itself is installed – Alan Birtles Jan 10 '20 at 08:10

score 14 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 04 '18 at 18:01

14

For generamba:

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin generamba

answered Sep 04 '18 at 18:01

Mihail Salari

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What is **generamba**? – IgorGanapolsky Dec 23 '20 at 16:19
@IgorGanapolsky, it's a code generator tool: https://github.com/strongself/Generamba – Mihail Salari Dec 24 '20 at 11:55

score 5 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 27 '21 at 18:55

5

For CocoaPods:

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin cocoapods

edited Apr 27 '21 at 18:55

David Buck

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answered Apr 27 '21 at 14:12

Americana American

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score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 17 '20 at 10:53

4

I used the same for bundler.

sudo gem install -n /usr/local/bin bundler.

It works.

answered Apr 17 '20 at 10:53

Amit

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"You don't have write permissions for the /usr/bin directory." when installing Sass using the Gem command

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