changing directory permissions .

jay.singh · 03-27-2013, 01:26 PM

m new to linux . and was practicing on my system . ok so i wish to change the permissions of all the directories inside /etc directory to 777 ,just with 2-3 lines of commands , how should i proceed ?

corp769 · 03-27-2013, 01:32 PM

Before I answer your question, you really shouldn't chmod your whole /etc tree, due to security reasons. That being said though, you can use chmod for this simple task, as such:

Code:

chmod -R 777 /etc

The -R flag means to use chmod recursively, which is what you would want to do to change permissions for all files and subdirectories within /etc. Hope this helps!

Cheers,

Josh

jay.singh · 03-27-2013, 01:37 PM

well thanx fr reply ,but what if i want to change permission of subdirectories only , not the files in /etc . AS there are numerous subdirectories in /etc , so thats obvious 'm not going to change permission one by one . need some alternate way out !

corp769 · 03-27-2013, 01:47 PM

Use the following then:

Code:

find /etc/ -mindepth 1 -type d

This will find all directories, with a minimum of one directory deep, in /etc for you. Now from here, you can use either the -exec argument with the find command, or you can pipe that to xargs, as such:

Code:

find /etc/ -mindepth 1 -type d | xargs chmod 777  # this is the xargs example

find /etc/ -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;  # this is using only the find command without piping to xargs, using -exec

Hope this helps!

Josh

Edit - You can also read up the man pages for the find and xargs commands for more information. Type "man find", etc.

jay.singh · 03-27-2013, 02:01 PM

thank you !

corp769 · 03-27-2013, 02:03 PM

Anytime! Do you have any more questions? If not, can you please mark your thread as solved located at the top of this page? Thanks!

suicidaleggroll · 03-27-2013, 02:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by corp769

Code:

find /etc/ -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec chmod -R 777 {} \;  # this is using only the find command without piping to xargs, using -exec

Probably just a typo, but that should be:

Code:

find /etc/ -maxdepth 1 -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;

To prevent chmod from recursively modifying the permissions of the files in those subdirectories.

corp769 · 03-27-2013, 02:10 PM

Ahh, that was. Thanks for that, my fingers tend to type more than what I really think.

John VV · 03-27-2013, 10:17 PM

however chmodding /etc to 777
might cause your system to never boot again

security programs like SELinux check things like folder permissions and if not correct
it will not boot
it should be 755 and 644

Madhu Desai · 03-28-2013, 03:30 AM

when i switched from Windows to CentOS, i copied tons of files from ntfs usb drive to ext4 home folder. In CentOS default user's permission for directory is 775 and 664 for files.

So,

Code:

# find -type d -iname "*" -exec chmod -R 0775 {} \;
# find -type f -iname "*" -exec chmod -R 0664 {} \;
# find -iname "*" -exec chown -R user:user {} \;

also, if you are interested in mass file renaming, check http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175453776/

suicidaleggroll · 03-28-2013, 09:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mddesai

when i switched from Windows to CentOS, i copied tons of files from ntfs usb drive to ext4 home folder. In CentOS default user's permission for directory is 775 and 664 for files.

So,

Code:

# find -type d -iname "*" -exec chmod -R 0775 {} \;
# find -type f -iname "*" -exec chmod -R 0664 {} \;
# find -iname "*" -exec chown -R user:user {} \;

also, if you are interested in mass file renaming, check http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ng-4175453776/

Couple of things

1) What is the point of -iname "*"? Why bother including it since it's not filtering anything?
2) You're already finding all directories, so the -R flag in the first chmod is redundant and very inefficient since it's going to be chmodding ALL files in ALL directories multiple times
3) The -R in the second chmod is doing nothing since you're only matching files
4) The -R in the chown is redundant and very inefficient since you're already running the command on all files and directories

Madhu Desai · 03-28-2013, 09:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suicidaleggroll

Couple of things

1) What is the point of -iname "*"? Why bother including it since it's not filtering anything?
2) You're already finding all directories, so the -R flag in the first chmod is redundant and very inefficient since it's going to be chmodding ALL files in ALL directories multiple times
3) The -R in the second chmod is doing nothing since you're only matching files
4) The -R in the chown is redundant and very inefficient since you're already running the command on all files and directories

hmmm. never thought about that.

thanks.