How to create a directory and give permission in single command
How to create a directory and give permission in single command in Linux? I have to create lots of folder with full permission 777 .
Commands
mkdir path/foldername chmod 777 path/foldername mkdir temp; chmod 777 temp is one line. You could make ‘temp’ a variable and save it as a bash command. Is this what you’re looking to do?
hi @white-rose, please see the latest answer, it should be the accepted answer. bonus, it combines mkdir, chmod AND chown in a single bullet!
8 Answers 8
mkdir -p -m is broken, since the mode is only applied to the last directory in the path you type. For example, mkdir -p -m 707 one/two/three. Even if all three directories are newly created, only the last one will have the requested permissions, and the others, default. install -d -m is broken the same way.
@Crossfit_and_Beer the above statement IS valid (at least for me on Debian 8 and 9). The emphasis is on the -p/—parents option. Do the test: mkdir -p -m777 /tmp/foo/bar/baz and you’ll see the created directories will have their permissions set in accordance to the current umask, except the last one which will get the desired mode.
@Crossfit_and_Beer the difference is — as I emphasized it — the —parent switch. You should create a chain of dirs like follows: $ umask 022; mkdir -p -m777 /tmp/foo/bar/baz; ls -lR /tmp/ drwxr-xr-x 3 tylla tylla 4096 dec 26 23:39 foo drwxr-xr-x 3 tylla tylla 4096 dec 26 23:39 bar drwxrwxrwx 2 tylla tylla 4096 dec 26 23:39 baz where /tmp was empty previously. If you’re creating two separate dirs as you did, you won’t notice the difference.
When the directory already exist:
mkdir -m 777 /path/to/your/dir When the directory does not exist and you want to create the parent directories:
mkdir -m 777 -p /parent/dirs/to/create/your/dir This will only give permission 777 to the final subdirectory. How can I do this and give permission 777 to all the parent directories too?
I don’t have an answer for this but I believe the answer for this is here: stackoverflow.com/questions/3740152/…
Note that this command is to solve this problem «How to create a directory and give permission in single command». I believe the solution to your question will be something like: find /your/dirs -type d -exec chmod 755 <> \;
should give you what you want. Be aware that every user has the right to write add and delete files in that directory.
It’s broken. install -d -m 070 one/two/three. Even if all three directories in the path are newly created, only the last one will have the requested permissions set. mkdir -p -m is broken in the same manner.
@DisplayName: which nevertheless sets the correct permissions for three , with the default permissions being sufficient for the path to it.
@MarkusWMahlberg what’s the point of having the correct permissions to just one path component, if the end result the same as if it didn’t set them: I gonna have to run chmod -R for the whole hierarchy?
IMO, it’s better to use the install command in such situations. I was trying to make systemd-journald persistent across reboots.
install -d -g systemd-journal -m 2755 -v /var/log/journal You could write a simple shell script, for example:
#!/bin/bash mkdir "$1" chmod 777 "$1" Once saved, and the executable flag enabled, you could run it instead of mkdir and chmod:
./scriptname path/foldername However, alex’s answer is much better because it spawns one process instead of three. I didn’t know about the -m option.
you can use following command to create directory and give permissions at the same time
mkdir -m777 path/foldername Just to expand on and improve some of the above answers:
First, I’ll check the mkdir man page for GNU Coreutils 8.26 — it gives us this information about the option ‘-m’ and ‘-p’ (can also be given as —mode=MODE and —parents, respectively):
. set[s] file mode (as in chmod), not a=rwx — umask
. no error if existing, make parent directories as needed
The statements are vague and unclear in my opinion. But basically, it says that you can make the directory with permissions specified by «chmod numeric notation» (octals) or you can go «the other way» and use a/your umask.
Side note: I say «the other way» since the umask value is actually exactly what it sounds like — a mask, hiding/removing permissions rather than «granting» them as with chmod’s numeric octal notation.
You can execute the shell-builtin command umask to see what your 3-digit umask is; for me, it’s 022 . This means that when I execute mkdir yodirectory in a given folder (say, mahome) and stat it, I’ll get some output resembling this:
755 richard:richard /mahome/yodirectory # permissions user:group what I just made (yodirectory), # (owner,group,others--in that order) where I made it (i.e. in mahome) # Now, to add just a tiny bit more about those octal permissions. When you make a directory, «your system» take your default directory perms’ [which applies for new directories (its value should 777)] and slaps on yo(u)mask, effectively hiding some of those perms’. My umask is 022—now if we «subtract» 022 from 777 (technically subtracting is an oversimplification and not always correct — we are actually turning off perms or masking them). we get 755 as stated (or «statted») earlier.
We can omit the ‘0’ in front of the 3-digit octal (so they don’t have to be 4 digits) since in our case we didn’t want (or rather didn’t mention) any sticky bits, setuids or setgids (you might want to look into those, btw, they might be useful since you are going 777). So in other words, 0777 implies (or is equivalent to) 777 (but 777 isn’t necessarily equivalent to 0777—since 777 only specifies the permissions, not the setuids, setgids, etc.)
Now, to apply this to your question in a broader sense—you have (already) got a few options. All the answers above work (at least according to my coreutils). But you may (or are pretty likely to) run into problems with the above solutions when you want to create subdirectories (nested directories) with 777 permissions all at once. Specifically, if I do the following in mahome with a umask of 022:
mkdir -m 777 -p yodirectory/yostuff/mastuffinyostuff # OR (you can swap 777 for 0777 if you so desire, outcome will be the same) install -d -m 777 -p yodirectory/yostuff/mastuffinyostuff I will get perms 755 for both yodirectory and yostuff , with only 777 perms for mastuffinyostuff . So it appears that the umask is all that’s slapped on yodirectory and yostuff . to get around this we can use a subshell:
( umask 000 && mkdir -p yodirectory/yostuff/mastuffinyostuff )
and that’s it. 777 perms for yostuff, mastuffinyostuff, and yodirectory.
Change folder permissions and ownership
I would like the user to have full rights on this folder (as well as all sub-directories and files in it):
currently owned by root. I have found numerous posts (in this forum and elsewhere) on how to do this for files but I can’t find a way to do it for whole folders.
9 Answers 9
Use chown to change ownership and chmod to change rights.
As Paweł Karpiński said, use the -R option to apply the rights for all files inside of a directory too.
Note that both these commands just work for directories too. The -R option makes them also change the permissions for all files and directories inside of the directory.
sudo chown -R username:group directory will change ownership (both user and group) of all files and directories inside of directory and directory itself.
sudo chown username:group directory will only change the permission of the folder directory but will leave the files and folders inside the directory alone.
As enzotib mentioned, you need to use sudo to change the ownership from root to yourself.
Note that if you use chown : (Note the left-out group), it will use the default group for that user.
If you want to change only the group, you can use:
BEWARE of recursively taking ownership of ANY directory. Think before you leap. Don’t be chown copypastin’ from the internet, kids. Just because you want to install a node package and it won’t let you, don’t sudo chown -R just because the fist hit from googling the error message says to. Reckless sudo chown -R -ing can kill your OS.
It needs to be said that using the -R option only applies to files and folders that exist in the directory already. It does NOT apply to future creations. For example, if you create another folder or file as root within the folder you’ve already changed permissions on, you will have the same experiences you’re having now until you chmod\chown them again.
Make the current user own everything inside the folder (and the folder itself):
very helpful for newbies (like me) when don’t know what to type in ‘usergroup’ for sudo chown
If you prefer, this can be done with a GUI as well. You will need to open Nautilus as root to do so. Press Alt + F2 to access the «Run Applications» dialog and enter gksu nautilus
Next, browse to and right click on the folder you would like to modify. Then, select «Properties» from the context menu. You can now select the user or group that you would like to be the «Owner» of the folder as well as the permissions you would like to grant them. Finally, press «Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files» to apply the changes recursively.
Though it seems this does not always work for some operations in a deep folder tree. If it does not work use the appropriate terminal command.