Linux – How to Find All Files and Directories Writable by a Specific User

findlinuxusers

Under Linux, how can I find all the files and directories that are writable (or, actually, not writable) by a particular user?

Edit: To clarify, I meant under a particular subdir, not systemwide. And yes, that means all the permutations and combinations of user, group and world writability that would allow that user to write. I know what the question entails semantically, I was hoping for a one- or few-liner to execute to get a list of these files.

Best Answer

Use the 'find' command if you have findutils version 4.3.0 or greater installed:

For all files under the current directory that are writable by the current user: 

find . -writable

For all files under the current directory that are not writable by the current user:

find . ! -writable

According to the man page:

This test makes use of the access(2) system call, and so can be fooled by NFS servers which do UID mapping (or root-squashing), since many systems implement access(2) in the client’s kernel and so cannot make use of the UID mapping information held on the server.

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