How to change permissions for a folder and its subfolders/files in one step?

Question

I would like to change permissions of a folder and all its sub folders and files in one step (command) in Linux.

I have already tried the below command but it works

Answer 1

Check the -R option

chmod -R <permissionsettings> <dirname>

In the future, you can save a lot of time by checking the man page first:

man <command name>

So in this case:

man chmod

Answer 2

You can use -R with chmod for recursive traversal of all files and subfolders.

You might need sudo as it depends on LAMP being installed by the current user or another one:

sudo chmod -R 755 /opt/lampp/htdocs

Answer 3

You want to make sure that appropriate files and directories are chmod-ed/permissions for those are appropriate. For all directories you want

find /opt/lampp/htdocs -type d -exec chmod 711 {} \;

And for all the images, JavaScript, CSS, HTML...well, you shouldn't execute them. So use

chmod 644 img/* js/* html/*

But for all the logic code (for instance PHP code), you should set permissions such that the user can't see that code:

chmod 600 file

Answer 4

You can change permission by using following commands

sudo chmod go=rwx /opt/lampp/htdocs

Answer 5

For Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion), it is:

chmod -R 755 /directory

And yes, as all other say, be careful when doing this.

Answer 6

chmod -R 755 directory_name works, but how would you keep new files to 755 also? The file's permissions becomes the default permission.