Unix: Is there a way to "copy" file or directory permissions?

Question

I have two files in a directory. One has correct permissions and the other has not. Is there a way I can "copy" the set of permissions from one file to another?

Solution 1

The GNU version of the chmod utility can copy the mode from one file (RFile) to another (file).

chmod --reference=RFile file

GNU coreutils is found in most Linux distributions and Cygwin, among other places. Not all chmod implementations provide this option.

Solution 2

I came up with this:

find $SOURCE -mindepth 1 -printf 'chmod --reference=%p\t%p\n'|sed "s/\t$SOURCE/ $DEST/g"|sh

It is not fully bullet proof, but does what I need.

Solution 3

try this:

find /PATH/TO/TARGET -exec chmod --reference /PATH/TO/SOURCE/{} {} \;

this would go up recursivly and chmod every file, if two directory don't match on files you will see lots of "No such file or directory" error.

Comments

[quack quixote]

chmod is not a bash builtin command. it is a separate utility available on many unixes. the --reference option is included in the GNU version; OSX probably uses a chmod that originates with BSD instead. OSX man chmod : developer.apple.com/Mac/library/documentation/Darwin/Referen‌​ce/…

[Jeremy L]

Svish, you might consider installing the GNU versions through MacPorts.

[LawrenceC]

Just figured that it would be useful to mention here that cp -dpR <source-file> <dest-file> will, when copying a file, copy permissions as well as the file.r

[Rick Sanchez]

find /home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test1 -exec chmod --reference /home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test2/{} {} \;

[Rick Sanchez]

chmod: failed to get attributes of '/home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test2//home/myubuntuuser/Desktop‌​/test1': No such file or directory chmod: failed to get attributes of '/home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test2//home/myubuntuuser/Desktop‌​/test1/111.txt': No such file or directory chmod: failed to get attributes of '/home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test2//home/myubuntuuser/Desktop‌​/test1/222.txt': No such file or directory chmod: failed to get attributes of '/home/myubuntuuser/Desktop/test2//home/myubuntuuser/Desktop‌​/test1/333.txt': No such file or directory

[Rick Sanchez]

tested it on 2 folders: test1 and test2. each have the same files 111/222/333.txt with different permissions. test1 has the default ones. test2 has 777 permissions. this is the error i get.