How to force CURRENT directory permissions on all sub-directories in Linux?

Question

I'm often finding myself in a situation where I login to shell as root (I've already been told it's a bad practice) and copy new files to some directory served by apache.

Since I'm logged in as root, the new files will have root set as owner, and different permissions than the files which are already present, and I'll need to change the permissions for Apache to be able to access the files. I am doing it manually.

I am researching a better way of doing it. I was wondering if there is a way to somehow apply with a single command the permissions of the current folder to all it's sub-folders and files.

Windows has such a feature, where you can "reset all files and folder permissions" to those of the parent folder.

Answer 1

To get the permissions on the current directory, you can use

stat -c %a .

To set permissions recursively, use

chomd -R

Put together, it gives

chmod -R `stat -c %a .` .

Or, you can use the --reference option of chmod if supported.

chmod -R --reference=. .

Answer 2

+1'd @choroba's answer but... are you sure that's what you want to do?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_system_permissions ...

Permissions
Unix-like systems implement three specific permissions that apply to each class:

• The read permission grants the ability to read a file. When set for a directory, this permission grants the ability to read the names of files in the directory, but not to find out any further information about them such as contents, file type, size, ownership, permissions.
• The write permission grants the ability to modify a file. When set for a directory, this permission grants the ability to modify entries in the directory. This includes creating files, deleting files, and renaming files.
• The execute permission grants the ability to execute a file. This permission must be set for executable programs, including shell scripts, in order to allow the operating system to run them. When set for a directory, this permission grants the ability to access file contents and meta-information if its name is known, but not list files inside the directory, unless read is set also.

The effect of setting the permissions on a directory, rather than a file, is "one of the most frequently misunderstood file permission issues".

When a permission is not set, the corresponding rights are denied. Unlike ACL-based systems, permissions on Unix-like systems are not inherited. Files created within a directory do not necessarily have the same permissions as that directory.

(emphasis added)