chown files

mecelec415 · 02-12-2010, 06:16 PM

I want to chown a few complete partitons to my user so i can clean up , delete and edit my files.
how can i chown a folder so i own every file in it?
if i chown like this

Code:

chown steve:steve store1/steves\ personal\ stuff/

i can write to the folder but i dont own the existing files in the said folder (notice how konsole shows spaces).
mandriva 2010

irmin · 02-12-2010, 06:38 PM

To change the ownership recursively, use option -R:

Code:

chown -R steve:steve store1/steves\ personal\ stuff/

see chown(1).

catkin · 02-12-2010, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mecelec415

I want to chown a few complete partitons to my user so i can clean up , delete and edit my files.
how can i chown a folder so i own every file in it?
if i chown like this

Code:

chown steve:steve store1/steves\ personal\ stuff/

i can write to the folder but i dont own the existing files in the said folder (notice how konsole shows spaces).
mandriva 2010

You cannot chown a folder so you own every file in it; you need to chown each file individually.

You do not need to own files to delete them; you only need write and execute (= search when on a directory) permissions on their parent directory to delete them. Practically you also need read permission on the parent directory so you can list them too.

Code:

c@CW8:/tmp$ mkdir test.dir
c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -ld test.dir
drwxr-xr-x 2 c users 4.0K Feb 13 08:37 test.dir
# root creates a file in test.dir
root@CW8:/tmp/test# touch test.file
c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -l test.dir/
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 Feb 13 08:45 test.file


# Set directory permissions to the minimum required to be able to delete files in it
c@CW8:/tmp$ chmod 300 test.dir
# We cannot now list the files within it
c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -l test.dir/
ls: cannot open directory test.dir/: Permission denied
c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -ld test.dir/
d-wx------ 2 c users 4096 Feb 13 08:53 test.dir/
# Remove the file
c@CW8:/tmp$ rm test.dir/test.file
rm: remove write-protected regular empty file `test.dir/test.file'? y


# Set directory permissions to the minimum required to list files in it 
c@CW8:/tmp$ chmod 500 test.dir/
c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -ld test.dir/
dr-x------ 2 c users 4096 Feb 13 08:53 test.dir/c@CW8:/tmp$ ls -l test.dir/
total 0