There's no "best" permissions plugin, their all good, and get the job done. I personally use GroupManager, for the pure reason that when I had a server w/ McMyAdmin it worked with permissions exporting, which let you add groups etc via the control panel.
GroupManager is the best bet, it keeps up to date, you can test my server and see how you like it, check my signature,
Like this for example: Code: groups: example: default: true info: prefix: '&fHello' suffix: '' build: true permissions: - 'essentials.help'
I have used PermissionsBukkit since I made a server and it's worked fine through updates and is simple to set up. For larger servers I would recommend either bPermissions or PermissionsEX as they have more features such as cross-server permissions, promotion tracks, etc.
Here you go. I've done most of it, you can add the nodes yourself. Also where you see "inheritance" use this so it'll use nodes from the previous group, so you don't have to write them into a higher group, saves time.
that groups.yml is broken, heres fixed: http://pastebin.com/dbmCpEih please see groupmanager wiki to see how to add nodes: http://wiki.ess3.net/wiki/Group_Manager
il give you the lain bot instructions, to save us time <Lain> .newlog: Stop your server, move your "server.log" file out of the craftbukkit directory. Start your server, let it load completely, then stop it. A new server.log will be created, please upload it to http://pastie.org or http://pastebin.com and post the link in the channel.
necrodoom found it http://pastebin.com/UUh3j2Nb necrodoom EDIT by Moderator: merged posts, please use the edit button instead of double posting.
why are you trying to set up a groups.yml in your config.yml... please read GM documation http://wiki.ess3.net/wiki/Group_Manager/Config
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: The following file couldn't pass on Parser. plugins/GroupManager/config.yml Caused by: while parsing a block mapping in "<reader>", line 1, column 1: groups: AKA: you DID try to set up a groups.yml in groupmanager config.yml. please atleast try to read documation