Re: chmod + chown

[Robert Citek <rwcitek@alum.calberkeley.org>]

On Monday, March 29, 2004, at 02:03  PM, john doe wrote:
> is there any way to do a recursive chmod where it only modifies the 
> file if it has a certain owner and group? i dont want to have to 
> resort to shell scripting if i dont have to

In the simplest case, find traverses a filesystem tree and prints all 
the "files" (files, directories, devices, fifos, etc.)  For example:

   $ find

You can also specify a folder or list of folders.  For example, to 
traverse both /etc, /var, and the current directory:

   $ find /etc /var .

You can also specify a test condition.  That is, if a "file" passes a 
test, it will get listed.  For example, to find only regular files (not 
directories nor devices nor fifos) in the directory tree rooted in the 
current folder:

   $ find . -type f

You can also specify a series of test conditions.  Those tests will be 
AND'ed by default.  For example, you want to find all files that are 
owned by me:

   $ find . -type f -user rwcitek

Lastly, since the output is a list of files, you can pipe it to other 
programs.  For example, to change the permissions to 0700 on all files 
owned by me:

   $ find . -type f -user rwcitek | xargs chmod 0700

Find comes with a whole bunch of other goodies, including operators, 
options, tests, and actions.  You can even do grouping.  For a brief 
listing type 'find --help'  For a more detailed description of options, 
see 'man find'

> i can with chown, which rocks, but i would like to be able to do it 
> with chmod.
>
> also is there an easy way to do something like chmod 754 for 
> directories but 755 for files? (not necessarily those 2 sets of 
> permissions, but one set of permission bits for folders and another 
> for files. that is more what i am after

Yes.  This is exactly what find is for:

   $ find . -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0754
   $ find . -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod 0755

The -print0 option in find and the -0 option in xargs properly handles 
filenames that have spaces in them.

Let us know what you decided to do and how things worked out for you.

Regards,
- Robert


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