changing permissions of files in a directory recursively

Question

I am trying to change the permissions of a files present in a directory and subdirectories using the below command and running into below error..can anyone help?

user@machine:/local/mnt/workspace$ find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
chmod: changing permissions of `./halimpl/ncihal/adaptation/NonVolatileStore.cpp': Operation not permitted

Answer 1

you can run the following command:

 #chown -R directory_path

But it will change the permissions of directories also.

For only files, you can run.

 #find directory_path -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

It also looks like you dont have enough permissions. try

 #sudo find directory_path -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

or run the command as root user.

Answer 2

It looks to me like you don't have permission to change NonVolatileStore.cpp.

Are you aware of chmod's -R switch that recursively changes permissions?

Answer 3

if you have the root privilege, try:

sudo find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;  

Answer 4

It could be that you simply don't own that file. Run an ls -l on it to see full permissions and who the owner is.

It could also be the filesystem is read only.