11

This conundrum is caused by running git pull from root.

There are various reasons for me to do so... I want my device to update code when booting up, and rc.local is run by root.

It all works mostly fine (npm install tends to fail when run by root, but that's a whole 'nother topic), the problem arises when I try to use the git repository with a non-root user afterward... some of the git files have been written by root, so now I can't use it anymore (permission denied).

So I'd like to recursively chown it back but there doesn't seem to be anything that really works on all of the little git files. I tried the -R flag and ./**/* path.

My guess is that neither of those techniques descend into dot-directories.

Improve this question
3
  • 1
    What shell are you using? In bash you need to set shopt -s dotglob in order to match hidden files by * or **. Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 5:56
  • 1
    @jimmij good to know, thanks (you can probably put that as an answer) Commented Aug 10, 2015 at 6:00
  • Did you chown -R *, instead of chown -R .? Commented Aug 11, 2015 at 21:09

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
18

The following command works for me in Ubuntu. It changed all the files and directories ownership recusively

sudo chown -R someuser:somegroup YourDir
Improve this answer
2
  • I tried sudo chown -R me:me . and when I ls -al all my files are still owned by root. Why does this not work? Commented Jan 25, 2018 at 13:31
  • @Richard did you try using an absolute path or ./ ? Commented May 6, 2018 at 19:01
0

I use tree instead:

 sudo tree -fai ~/.blabla | xargs -L1 -I{} sudo chown youruser:youruser {}

Also take care to not run recursive chown or chmod on '/' directory or other system directory.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.