How to chown large group of files based on previous owner id

bashchowncommand linerecursive

I created a new account in OS X and disposed of my old one.

I have a bunch of files that now have owner 501 that need to have ownership changed to me

[/usr/local]$ ll 
total 24
drwxrwxr-x  18 root  admin   612B Oct 20 11:01 ./
drwxr-xr-x@ 14 root  wheel   476B Oct 19 10:43 ../
-rw-r--r--   1 501   admin   116B Oct 19 10:01 .gitignore
drwxr-xr-x  13 501   admin   442B Oct 19 12:35 Cellar/
drwxr-xr-x   7 501   admin   238B Oct 19 12:17 Library/
-rw-r--r--   1 501   admin   679B Oct 19 10:01 README.md
drwxr-xr-x  42 501   admin   1.4K Oct 20 11:12 bin/
drwxr-xr-x   2 501   admin    68B Oct 20 11:01 cfg/
drwxr-xr-x   5 501   admin   170B Oct 20 11:08 data/
drwxr-xr-x   7 501   admin   238B Oct 20 11:08 docs/
drwxr-xr-x   4 501   admin   136B Oct 19 12:23 etc/
drwxr-xr-x  11 501   admin   374B Oct 19 12:35 include/
drwxr-xr-x  38 501   admin   1.3K Oct 19 12:35 lib/
lrwxr-xr-x   1 root  wheel    27B Oct 20 10:02 mysql -> mysql-5.5.16-osx10.6-x86_64
drwxr-xr-x  16 root  wheel   544B Sep  9 11:08 mysql-5.5.16-osx10.6-x86_64/
drwxr-xr-x  16 501   admin   544B Oct 20 11:01 share/
drwxr-xr-x   4 501   admin   136B Oct 20 11:01 tests/
drwxr-xr-x   2 501   admin    68B Oct 20 11:01 www/



[/usr/local]$ ll Cellar
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  13 501   admin   442B Oct 19 12:35 ./
drwxrwxr-x  18 root  admin   612B Oct 20 11:01 ../
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:18 gettext/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:16 git/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:21 glib/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:34 gnutls/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:23 irssi/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:31 libgcrypt/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:30 libgpg-error/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:20 libiconv/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:32 libtasn1/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:35 loudmouth/
drwxr-xr-x   3 501   admin   102B Oct 19 12:17 pkg-config/
[/usr/local]$

GOAL

I want to recursively find all files and directories in /usr/local/ with owner 501 and chown them to $USER

NOTE

Some of the files and directories in this folder are owned by root. These files need to remain untouched.

Best Answer

sudo find /usr/local -uid 501 -exec chown $USER '{}' ';'

By the way, find also has the -nouser option that matches all files with UIDs of deleted users:

sudo find /usr/local -nouser -exec chown $USER '{}' ';'

would also match files by another deleted user.

Related Solutions

Linux – Creating files and directories with a certain owner (user/group) while sudoing

You can always sudo -u username touch filename when your script is executed as root. It usually requires no password, depending on your sudoers configuration.

Alternatively, run su username -c touch filename. The additional arguments are supplied to the user's shell, and the -c option to the shell executes the specified commands by convention.

Some commands (like mkdir) support arguments to specify the permissions:

mkdir -m 0700 foo

By default, file operations respect the umask set for the shell. It defines which permissions are denied. A umask of 0022 for example does not set write permissions for group and others. Set to 0077 to prevent group and others from getting any permissions.

You can set the setgid on directories to have all files created within inherit their group membership:

chmod g+s someDir

Some Unixes support the same behavior for setuid (chmod u+s), but not Linux.

Macos – pip not working on hombrew python 2.7 install

Generally, homebrew will install a formula into /usr/local/Cellar/formula and then place a link at /usr/local/bin/formula.

To make use of your installed formulae, make sure /usr/local/bin is in your $PATH. Show your $PATH by typing

echo $PATH

If /usr/local/bin is not in your $PATH, put this line at the end of your ~/.profile file.

export PATH="/usr/local/bin:$PATH"

Now, check what pythons are found on your OSX by typing:

which -a python

There should be one python found at /usr/bin/ (the Apple python) and one at /usr/local/bin/ which is the Homebrew python.

which python

will show you, which python is found first in your $PATH and will be executed when you invoke python.

If you want to know, where the executable is, show it by typing

ls -l $(which python)

This could look like this: lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 68 7 Mai 13:22 python -> /usr/local/bin/python

This will work for pip as well.

If you show the results of this steps, we can probably help you much easier.

-- UPDATE --

You have /usr/local/bin/python linked to /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.9/bin/python. -> brew install python worked.

show, if pip is installed by typing

brew list python | grep pip

You should see

/usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.9/bin/pip

If not, check, if there are links, which are not done with brew install. Told you something like this:

"Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local"

To force the link and overwrite all conflicting files:

brew link --overwrite python

To list all files that would be deleted:

brew link --overwrite --dry-run python

** NO standard Apple /usr/bin/python **

link from /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.9/bin/python to /usr/bin/python

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/python/2.7.9/bin/python /usr/bin/python

This is necessary for all python scripts beginning with #!/usr/bin/python. Especialy easy_install will fail, if link is not there.

Now, you are able to run

easy_install pip

Hope, you're making progress