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Copy permissions and owner from a reference file

caution rootPermissions and ownershipalle

Caution: This command changes the system. Understand what it does before you run it.

Adjust the values, the command updates live
root@server
chmod --reference=/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/index.php /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-config.php && chown --reference=/var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/index.php /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-config.php

Reads the permissions as well as owner and group of the reference file and applies them identically to the target. That way you need to know neither octal values nor user names. Typical case: a configuration file was edited or uploaded as root and should look like its neighbors again.

Note: Both options also support -R for entire directory trees. chown sets owner and group at the same time.

Also searched as

  • chmod reference same permissions as another file
  • copy file permissions linux
  • copy owner from neighboring file
  • file replaced as root has wrong owner

Related one-liners

All in Permissions and ownership

Find files with the wrong owner in a webspace

#find /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs ! -user webuser -ls
harmlessPermissions and ownership

Find files without a valid owner

#find /var/www -xdev \( -nouser -o -nogroup \) -ls 2>/dev/null
harmlessPermissions and ownership

Find world-writable files and directories

$find /var/www/vhosts -xdev -perm -0002 ! -type l -ls 2>/dev/null
harmlessPermissions and ownership

Remove write permission for others recursively

$chmod -R o-w /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs
cautionPermissions and ownership

Reset file ownership in a Plesk webspace to the subscription user

#find /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs -mindepth 1 -exec chown -h webuser:psacln {} +
cautionPermissions and ownership

Secure the permissions of wp-config.php

$chmod 600 /var/www/vhosts/example.com/httpdocs/wp-config.php
cautionPermissions and ownership

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