How to change all of the contents inside of directory to what the default file ownership and permissions are

chmod

I have moved contents of another drive into my home directory, but the permissions are not what they should be. First, I changed ownership by entering:

  ~$ sudo chown -R USERME /home/USERHOME/

Which I think works now.

But now, I wanted to simply change all of the files and sub-directories into the default permissions, with files being read+write, and directories being r+w+x. I have not found a recursive way of handling this. I have run:

  ~$ sudo chmod 755 -R /home/USERHOME/

To make everything available to me. However, files appear as executables, and this is not what I want. There are plenty more sub-directories and files so I am looking for a simple recursive solution.

Basically, I think I am looking for a recursive way to reapply the default umask parameter to a whole folder with (I think) chmod.

Update:

I have posted a solution thanks to @SkyDan and "changing chmod for files but not directories"

Best Answer

chmod can do it, you don't need find.

Use symbolic mode and capital X.

chmod -R u=rwX,og=rX directory

alternately to avoid repetition, and make easier to edit. We can made it action orientated, instead of role orientated.

chmod -R a=rX,u+w directory

The capital X tells chmod to apply x to directories, (and if it already has it, if you do for example go+X).

Manual extract:

The format of a symbolic mode is [ugoa...][[+-=][perms...]...], where perms is either zero or more letters from the set rwxXst, or a single letter from the set ugo. Multiple symbolic modes can be given, separated by commas.

A combination of the letters ugoa controls which users' access to the file will be changed: the user who owns it (u), other users in the file's group (g), other users not in the file's group (o), or all users (a). If none of these are given, the effect is as if a were given, but bits that are set in the umask are not affected.

The operator + causes the selected file mode bits to be added to the existing file mode bits of each file; - causes them to be removed; and = causes them to be added and causes unmentioned bits to be removed except that a directory's unmentioned set user and group ID bits are not affected.

The letters rwxXst select file mode bits for the affected users: read (r), write (w), execute (or search for directories) (x), execute/search only if the file is a directory or already has execute permission for some user (X), set user or group ID on execution (s), restricted deletion flag or sticky bit (t). Instead of one or more of these letters, you can specify exactly one of the letters ugo: the permissions granted to the user who owns the file (u), the permissions granted to other users who are members of the file's group (g), and the permissions granted to users that are in neither of the two preceding categories (o).

Related Solutions

Permissions 755 – Understanding Permissions on /home//

If your home directory is private, then no one else can access any of your files. In order to access a file, a process needs to have execute permission to all the directories on the path down the tree from the root directory. For example, to allow other users to read /home/martin/public/readme, the directories /, /home, /home/martin and /home/martin/public all need to have the permissions d??x??x??x (it can be drwxr-xr-x, or drwx--x--x or some other combination), and additionally the file readme must be publicly readable (-r??r??r??).

It is common to have home directories with mode drwxr-xr-x (755) or at least drwx--x--x (711). Mode 711 (only execute permission) on a directory allows others to access a file in that directory if they know its name, but not to list the content of the directory. Under that home directory, create public and private subdirectories as desired.

If you never, ever want other people to read any of your files, you can make your home directory drwx------ (700). If you do that, you don't need to protect your files individually. This won't break anything other than the ability of other people to read your file.

One common thing that may break, because it's an instance of other people reading your files, is if you have a directory such as ~/public_html or ~/www which contains your web page. Depending on the web server's configuration, this directory may need to be world-readable.

You can change the default permissions for the files you create by setting the umask value in your .profile. The umask is the complement of the maximal permissions of a file. Common values include 022 (writable only by the owner, readable and executable by everyone), 077 (access only by the owner), and 002 (like 022, but also group-writable). These are maximal permissions: applications can set more restrictive permissions, for example most files end up non-executable because the application that created them didn't set the execute permission bits when creating the file.

Setting default umask and user:group on directory

Option 1: The permissions of the files inside the directory doesn't matter, blocking at the directory level is usually enough, so chmod 2750 /path-to-dir is enough.

Option 2: Use ACLs only (chmod 2750 /path-to-dir is not necessary, but make things nicer for people not used to ACLs).

setfacl -R -b -d -m o::--- -m u::rwX -m g::rX  .

note that you could set g::rwX to achieve 770/660

Update:

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Permissions 755 – Understanding Permissions on /home//

Setting default umask and user:group on directory

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