below is the snapshot of the code in production , requirement was to change the user and owner for one of the directory "policy"

i added $chown -R ${USER}:${USER} /opt/app/policy just below the existing code in prod which is $chown -R root:${USER} /opt/app.
now it lookis like

chown -R root:${USER} /opt/app
chown -R ${USER}:${USER} /opt/app/policy


but after running script the "policy" directy dont have the user changed it still shows root.

Welcome to LQ,

There could be a couple of problems here. The group for root owned files, probably should remain as root. If the directory above is owned by root and also if the files are currently owned by root then you would need to have root privileges to be able to change ownership, either by logging in as root or using the sudo command.

I'd recommend issuing these on the command line to get it working correctly and then copying that into your script to test it out further. You also can enable verbose and debug output within your script by adding a "set -xv" line near the top of your script, I'm not sure that debug output will get you much, but it's worth trying out. You also can echo what $USER is and determine if that is also a group name on the system.

Not sure it is a right choice to change ownership of a directory of files in the general area that is not related specifically to a user's home location.

2 members found this post helpful.

You post is not understandable.

Let me ask you a question. If something is owned by root, what kind of permissions would you need to have to change it?

For example, this file
That says that root can read/write/execute. No one else can write to it.

See:
man chown
man su
man sudo
man ls

Or do I misunderstand something?

Probably your system protecting you from shooting yourself in the foot.

Maybe chown has a verbose switch, what does it say?

Anyhow, "ckumar"? Sounds familiar, I think TB0ne will be along shortly...

The commands by themselves, if executed by the superuser, will change ownership of all directories and files at /opt/app/policy to $USER.

Note that there are several conditions for this to work. Here are a few:

Are you sure these lines are executed at all? If so, how do you know?
Only the superuser can change ownership. Are the commands executed by root? Again, how do you know?
Are you sure the value of USER is something else than "root"?

And of course, are there any error messages?

A few troubleshooting tips:
Add echo commands before and after the chown commands.
Use set -x before the commands you want to troubleshoot, and set +x after them (this works for Bash, not sure for other shells).