chown on 206,682 items

mashcaster · 12-29-2008, 02:30 AM

Using Ubuntu 8.10, I have tried chown on 206,682 items in a specific folder but it does not allow it:

Quote:

mashcaster@mashcaster-desktop:~$ sudo chown -R mashcaster /home/mashcaster/Desktop/new/*
[sudo] password for mashcaster:
sudo: unable to execute /bin/chown: Argument list too long
mashcaster@mashcaster-desktop:~$

How do I get around this problem?

Junior Hacker · 12-29-2008, 03:20 AM

Quote:

2. To change the owner and group of all files in the directory /tmp/src
to owner john and group build:

chown -R john:build /tmp/src

Taken from the chown man pages.

tredegar · 12-29-2008, 03:39 AM

Please read: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6060
And remember, most linux error messages can be fed directly into an internet search engine to discover both what they mean and how to avoid them.

mashcaster · 12-29-2008, 04:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tredegar

Please read: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6060
And remember, most linux error messages can be fed directly into an internet search engine to discover both what they mean and how to avoid them.

I know, but what if the solution found does not work? A beautiful example is the link in your post.

tredegar · 12-29-2008, 05:08 AM

What "does not work" ? Please give an example.

mashcaster · 12-29-2008, 05:13 AM

sudo cannot handle more than 200,000 items apparently. I've found the solution, thanks for the help.

billymayday · 12-29-2008, 05:17 AM

Try

Code:

sudo chown -R mashcaster /home/mashcaster/Desktop/new

as implied by JH

i92guboj · 12-29-2008, 05:48 AM

In these cases find and/or xargs can be useful.

Code:

find /path/to -exec chown john:doe '{}' \;

Code:

find /path/to | xargs chown john:doe

Either way it should work. The second one will require less iterations and should be faster and less resource intensive. There are many more ways: recursion, loops, etc. All of them are probably more inefficient.

jschiwal · 12-29-2008, 06:48 AM

Be sure to read the xargs manpage. There are options such as `-L' to limit the number of arguments handled at once.