Make group permissions same as user permissions

chmodpermissions

I want to set the group permissions for all files and subdirectories within a certain parent directory to whatever the user permission setting for that specific file or directory is.

For example, everything under /path/to/parentdir

# Permissions before
# Path                      Permissions
/path/to/parentdir/file1    755
/path/to/parentdir/file2    644
/path/to/parentdir/file3    600

# Permissions after
/path/to/parentdir/file1    775
/path/to/parentdir/file2    664
/path/to/parentdir/file3    660

I'm hoping there's a simple way to do this in hopefully one command. I can think of ways using a script with a bunch of commands, but it feels like there should be a pretty direct way of doing it.

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

This is what you want:

chmod -R g=u directory

Related Solutions

Bash – How to set permissions recursively on a dir (with ACL enabled)

setfacl has a recursive option (-R) just like chmod:

  -R, --recursive
      Apply operations to all files and directories recursively. This
      option cannot be mixed with `--restore'.

it also allows for the use of the capital-x X permission, which means:

  execute only if the file is a directory or already has
  execute permission for some user (X)

so doing the following should work:

setfacl -R -m u:colleague:rwX .

(all quotes are from man setfacl for acl-2.2.52 as shipped with Debian)

Restrictive “group” permissions but open “world” permissions

When determining access permissions using Unix-style permissions, the current user is compared with the file's owner, then the group, and the permissions applied are those of the first component which matches. Thus the file's owner has the owner's permissions (and only those), members of the file's group have the group's permissions (and only those), everyone else has the "other users'" permissions.

Thus:

John has no permissions for this file.
The most specific permission match wins, not the most permissive (access rights aren't cumulative).
With permissions 642, John could read the file.
There are reasons to give permissions such as 604: this allows the group to be excluded, which can be handy in some situations — I've seen it on academic systems with a students group, where staff could create files accessible to anyone but students.

root has access to everything, regardless of the permissions defined on the file.

For more complex access control you should look into SELinux and POSIX ACLs. (SELinux in particular can even limit what root has access to.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Bash – How to set permissions recursively on a dir (with ACL enabled)

Restrictive “group” permissions but open “world” permissions

Related Question