[Linux-disciples] Easy Question - Changing Permissions a list of files

[Adam Rosi-Kessel]

Jason Smith wrote:
> I have directory with about 25 text files in it. I want to change the
> permissions on the directory and its contents. I can change the
> permission on the directory but the contents don't change.
> 
> I am sure there is a way to say "Please change the permissions to all
> the files in this directory to ugo+rwx" or some such.

chmod ugo+rwx *

??

You can also do recursive permission changing:

chmod -R ugo+rwx *

You almost certainly don't want ugo+rwx, however, in case that was a real
example.  Directories are the only thing that should be executable other
than actual programs. If you want to make all directories under a particular
directory "accessible" (i.e., people can get in them and look at files, you
would do):

find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type d -exec chmod 755 '{}' ';'
find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type f -exec chmod 644 '{}' ';'

755 is equivalent to user read/write/execute, and group and other read/write
644 is equivalent to user read/write, and group and other read

If you want it to be totally open to the world:

find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type d -exec chmod 777 '{}' ';'
find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type f -exec chmod 666 '{}' ';'

These find functions would all be recursive. If you only wanted it to go one
level in, you could do something like:

find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type d -maxdepth 1 \
					  -exec chmod 755 '{}' ';'

find ~/path_to_make_all_available -type f -maxdepth 1 \
					  -exec chmod 644 '{}' ';'

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