[SOLVED] Accidentally Locked Folders

[UnknownFear]

Is there a way to unlock folders in the /etc directory? I did this command:


sudo chown <username> /etc

And now all the directorys and files in that folder has a lock on it. Any help? Also, I am trying to change the permissions of one folder in the /etc directory, but it says I am not the owner. I want to delete that one folder. Any help?

[brigux]

su <username>
chown root /etc

[UnknownFear]

I dont think it worked.


dan@dan-desktop:~$ su dan
Password:
dan@dan-desktop:~$ chown root /etc
chown: changing ownership of `/etc': Operation not permitted
dan@dan-desktop:~$

I still have locks on my folders.

[MonkeyRail]

I had a similar problem with music files in my home directory.
I managed to sort it be right clicking on the folder, then Properties, clicked on the Permissions tab and changed it that way.

I could change multiple folders at the same time by using ctrl-a then going right clicking on the folders.

[Monicker]

I dont think it worked.


dan@dan-desktop:~$ su dan
Password:
dan@dan-desktop:~$ chown root /etc
chown: changing ownership of `/etc': Operation not permitted
dan@dan-desktop:~$

I still have locks on my folders.


sudo chown root /etc

[mlentink]

afaik....


su means "switch user"

sudo means "as super user do...."
Different things...

su without an argument will switch you to root. But in Ubuntu, root is diabled by default, so it will have null result.
You could do
sudo suby the way, which would effectively make you root for the current terminal session or until you exit

Again, I'm no expert, but this is my understanding

[UnknownFear]

sudo chown root /etc

That worked!! I now don't have any locks on the folders!! Now, I tried deleting the folder (vmware) but it said i dont have the permission to delete it :S I went into the folder properties and on the Permissions tab, everything is greyed out and it says i am not the owner. Some help? All I want to do is delete the vmware folder so I can reinstall vmware-server again.

[tacutu]

sudo rm -rf /etc/vmware

But, really big WARNING: do not play with file permissions in system folders (like /etc). You can badly damage your system.

[UnknownFear]

sudo rm -rf /etc/vmware

But, really big WARNING: do not play with file permissions in system folders (like /etc). You can badly damage your system.

Believe me, I won't I just wanted to increase the GRUB timeout to 30 sec. That was all I needed.

[wootah]

You could always check the permissions of the folder at terminal with:

ls -lsad folder_name

[terry_gardener]

to increase the grub timeout the best program to use if you dont want to edit config files manually is startup-manager it is in the repros.

you can also change the default os easily

[tacutu]

to increase the grub timeout, just do:


sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

no need to mess w/ permissions!

And I thought you wanted to delete /etc/vmware, not mess with grub?

[svenofix]

I seem to be having a problem similar to the one mentioned in the previous
posts. Yesterday I got all my backed up music that I had burned to CD's (I
used Windows and burnt the music as data not as an audio CD) back into
ubuntu (not using any media player, just click n drag n drop). However, I
noticed after I had done that, that all the music folders were locked, nor
can I play any of them as far as I know. Now I would like to delete those
folders and try again, but find I can't as I get these error messages:




Cannot move file to trash, do you want to delete immediately?
The file "'folder/audio'" cannot be moved to trash

> Show more information
Unable to trash file: Permission Denied

Cancel Skip All Skip Delete All Delete



That's my first error message, I click delete all and get:




Error while deleting.
There was an error deleting desktop.ini

> Show more details
Error removing file: Permission Denied

Cancel Skip All Skip




Any help anyone?

[MikeConklin]

1) open terminal
2) type gksudo nautilus
3) navigate to the folder that is locked ( the lock icon does not show in nautilus )
4) right click on that folder
5) open permissions tab
6) change permission to your name
7) the folder is now unlocked