How to safely change permissions for folder/all subfolders & files?

[samuraiCat]

Ok, if you log on as root (sudo actually) on the source machine, give read access to everyone:

cd /home/olduser
sudo chmod -R o+r *

You should now be able to copy files. You will however require execute permissions on directories in order to list the contents..

sudo chmod o+x <directory>

will sort that out for you.

Okay, thanks, but just to make sure I have this correct, will I need to do the second sudo chmod o+x on each top level directory I want to move? For example, sudo chmod o+x Pictures, sudo chmod o+x Documents, etc.

[steviefordi]

You only need to do the second one if-

• you need to list the contents (which I don't think you'll need for the copy)

AND

• You don't already have execute permissions set for everybody.

If it turns out you do need to do it, you will have to do it for each top level directory. You can achieve this quickly with find:

find /home/olduser -type d -exec chmod o+x '{}' \;

Which basically means - find all the directories from /home/olduser down and execute the chmod on each one.

Cheers
Steve.

[samuraiCat]

You only need to do the second one if-

• you need to list the contents (which I don't think you'll need for the copy)

AND

• You don't already have execute permissions set for everybody.

If it turns out you do need to do it, you will have to do it for each top level directory. You can achieve this quickly with find:

find /home/olduser -type d -exec chmod o+x '{}' \;

Which basically means - find all the directories from /home/olduser down and execute the chmod on each one.

Cheers
Steve.

Great! Thanks a lot!