hello!
working with various web installations, i do
chown apache:apache -R gallery/
in wrong directory. theoretically, that command in that case must do nothing, but i see a big disc activity, and my current console be freeze. i login to another console, and via top see a "chown" process consumes big processor power. i stopped it with "kill", but now, i see, a part of all my filesystem have a user / group apache, even when it not must be - i e entire /home , and so on - there is a way / script for restore all correct owner and groups for catalogs and files in system?

You are not the first. See here for ideas and links. http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...-reset-882891/

Check out this script which I distilled ong ago from an online USENET discussion: http://www.slackware.com/~alien/tool...om_manifest.sh
The usage instructions are in the top of that script.

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

Ok - I'll be the big horrible nasty person to say it : working as root is dangerous and should only be done for the absolute minimum required work. I see far too many people become root (or worse, login as root) and do things that really should be done as an ordinary user under an ordinary account. I hope you come right - I see the greats (AlienBob,allend) have already made useful comments - but I hope further that you have learned from this experience. BTW - you never really become a Unix/Linux expert until you've really wasted a system :-)

Well on second thought, the script I linked to does no more than fixing permissions... it does not handle ownership changes.
So my previous answer won't be all that useful unfortunately.

Eric

Thank you very much!
i used AlienBob script, and now it's work - hope all be fine when it's done
2Mark: i be an old idiot - almost as old, as Bilbo i start working with my first linux distro - 4.0 if i remember correctly - about 2000, and mostly i work with configuration and so as root. but not remember big catasthrophes on that. today accident is strange for me, because, theoretically if in directory, where i was, not gallery/ catalog, instruction must be do nothing, imho. saw a some strange things on my slack 14 x64 - some times i had not working, blocked terminal - i connect to my machine via ssh, and then, after connect, run mc and work in it, time from time i do ctrl+O to switch midnight commander panels on and off. after some time that, i two times get that remote console stop working - i type on keyboard, or "tab" to switch between mc panels - and nothing. open new terminal, ssh to my server again - new one works, old - locked up. strange, my previously server be a slack 11 or 11.2, and that situation is very rare, if ever happen...

it do chgrp too:

chmod -R 0644 /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/iso8859-11.txt
chgrp root:root /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/iso8859-11.txt
chmod -R 0644 /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/COPYING
chgrp root:root /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/COPYING
chmod -R 0644 /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/A20/
chgrp root:root /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/A20/
chmod -R 0644 /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/A20/xfix-286mode2
chgrp root:root /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/A20/xfix-286mode2
chmod -R 0644 /usr/doc/kbd-1.15.3/

chgrp looks do job like a chown, not? syntahis like user:user is looks the same...

The vast majority of the system is owned by root.root so if you start from there you'll at least have a system that can be shutdown and rebooted again.

You can of course ignore /dev, /proc & /sys as these are all system generated and will either ignore attempts to change permissions or will revert to the correct settings on a reboot.

/home is root.root but the directories and files underneath that are ${USERNAME}.users

Your actually lucky as a chown does far less damage then a chmod will in this situation.

I just tried the smprms script from http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~cameronk/progs.html on the MANIFEST file obtained by unzipping MANIFEST.bz2
Without wading through the entire 55MB generated by 'cat MANIFEST | ./smprms > output.txt' it looks as though it will work. You could always grep out all the 'chmod' lines to just leave the 'chown' lines.

yes, looks like AlienBob script not change owner \ group for files \ directories. bit of sadly. i go chown root:root -R to about all of my general catalogs, but i suppose, that not best things, because no all of this myust be root:root.
i also installed slack 14 64 bit onb another hdd - fresh install. can i use any simple script, who gets files permissions from that , newly installed filesystem and do apply bthat on my old system? i remeber some pieces of association like "--inherits"...?

chown --reference can be used, if i have a "right" filesystem for repair via that my "breaked" fs?

not to discourage you from trying to fix it, but if that will happen to me I think I will try to evaluate the time that I will have to spend trying to fix it against the time to do a clean reinstall.

1 members found this post helpful.

that is my "new server", and i think, i spend about a week+ if i must be reinstall all it. as so, i think, fix it is much better variant now i try allend variant

strange, but that script produce many and many lines like a:


cown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/images/toolbox_actions.png’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/images/toolbox_status.png’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/images/toolbox_print_settings.png’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/images/xsane.png’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/images/favicon.ico’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/mainttask.html’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/troubleshooting.html’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/upgrading.html’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/hplip3.12.9/hpscan.html’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/etc/dbus1/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/etc/dbus1/system.d/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/etc/dbus1/system.d/com.hp.hplip.conf’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/etc/xdg/autostart/hplipsystray.desktop’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/AUTHORS’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/ChangeLog’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/COPYING’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/README’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/htop1.0.1/NEWS’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ispell3.2.06/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ispell3.2.06/Contributors’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ispell3.2.06/Magiclines’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ispell3.2.06/README’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ispell3.2.06/WISHES’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/bin/deformatsh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/bin/deformatc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/doinst.sh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/lib/isolat3.sl’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/lib/ltxcomp.dat’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/lib/isolatin.sl’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/lib/ltxmath.sl’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/lib/isolat2.sl’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/doc/txt/linuxkeys.txt’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/doc/txt/pckeys.txt’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/share/jed/doc/txt/idemode.txt’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/doinst.sh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/doinst.sh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/TODO’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/HACKING’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/README’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/HINTS’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/NEWS’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/COPYING’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/helpsystem.html’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/ChangeLog’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/joe3.7/LIST’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/doinst.sh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/lib64/jove/keychart.suncmd’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/lib64/jove/jove.rc.suncmd’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/bin/ksh.new’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/OBSOLETE’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/COMPATIBILITY’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/README’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/PROMO.mm’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/RELEASE93’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/RELEASE88’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/LICENSE/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/LICENSE/README’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/DESIGN’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/CPL’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/ksh9320100621/RELEASE’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/slackdesc’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/install/doinst.sh’: No such file or directory
chown: cannot access ‘/usr/doc/libx861.1/’: No such file or directory


alhough i have a "full install"...:-O
not all lines from that is "no such", but very many...strange.

From the smprms script.
Are those files actually on your system?