Linux – Correct recursive chmod, separate for files & dirs

In order to have all files under a given directory inherit group rights, you need to use the setgid bit on your directory. See this link.

 $ mkdir test
 $ sudo chown raphink.staff test
 $ ls -lhd test
     drwxr-xr-x 2 raphink staff 4.0K 2009-12-21 16:19 test
 $ sudo chmod g+s test # Set the setgid bit
 $ ls -lhd test
     drwxr-sr-x 2 raphink staff 4.0K 2009-12-21 16:21 test
 $ touch test/foo
 $ ls -lh test
     total 0
     -rw-r--r-- 1 raphink staff 0 2009-12-21 16:23 foo

I do find a script useful since it's often useful to change both file and directory permissions in one swoop, and they are often linked. 770 and 660 for shared directories on a file server, 755/644 for web server directories, etc. I keep a script w/ the most commonly used mode for that type of server in root's bin/ and just do the find manually when the common mode doesn't apply.

#!/bin/sh
# syntax: setperm.s destdir
#
if [ -z $1 ] ; then echo "Requires single argument: <directoryname>" ; exit 1 ;                                       fi

destdir=$1

dirmode=0770
filemode=0660

YN=no

printf "\nThis will RECURSIVELY change the permissions for this entire branch:\n                                      "
printf "\t$destdir\n"
printf "\tDirectories chmod = $dirmode\tFiles chmod = $filemode\n"
printf "Are you sure want to do this [$YN]? "

read YN

case $YN in
        [yY]|[yY][eE][sS])
        # change permissions on files and directories.
        find $destdir -type f -print0 | xargs -0 chmod $filemode $i
        find $destdir -type d -print0 | xargs -0 chmod $dirmode $ii ;;

        *) echo "\nBetter safe than sorry I always say.\n" ;;
esac