GNU bug report logs - #9788
chown gets permission denied

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Richard Woolley <rwoolley <at> marvell.com>
To: "bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org" <bug-coreutils <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Richard Woolley <rwoolley <at> marvell.com>
Subject: chown gets permission denied
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:07:47 -0700

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

When trying to change ownership of the files in a directory, I mistakenly had the settings wrong in the command, so I got the following
ls -l
total 16
drw-rw-r--  4  user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 doc/
drw-rw-r-- 24 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:27 modules/
drw-rw-r--  3 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 project/
ls -l project
total 0
?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? compile.conf
?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? myproject.conf
?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? novas_fli.so

Same for the other directories' contents.
When I try to chown -R or chgrp -R or rm -rf for project/  I get permission denied.  How can I use chown to set something valid (e.g., user proj1) so I can get rid of these directories/files??

Thanks.
Richard

[Message part 2 (text/html, inline)]

Message #8 received at 9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: "Alan Curry" <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>
To: rwoolley <at> marvell.com (Richard Woolley)
Cc: 9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9788: chown gets permission denied
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 18:36:53 -0500 (GMT+5)

Richard Woolley writes:
> 
> When trying to change ownership of the files in a directory, I mistakenly h=
> ad the settings wrong in the command, so I got the following
> ls -l
> total 16
> drw-rw-r--  4  user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 doc/
> drw-rw-r-- 24 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:27 modules/
> drw-rw-r--  3 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 project/

Your first problem is that you've got some directories here with read
permission but no x permission. In that situation, this happens:

> ls -l project
> total 0
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? compile.conf
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? myproject.conf
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? novas_fli.so

ls can read the directory, getting the filenames, but the lack of x
permission prevents it from getting any other information.

First chmod u+x doc modules project, then see what you get from ls -l on
them.

-- 
Alan Curry

Message #11 received at 9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Richard Woolley <rwoolley <at> marvell.com>
To: Alan Curry <pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org>
Cc: "9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org" <9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
Subject: RE: bug#9788: chown gets permission denied
Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:59:04 -0700

Hi Alan,

Thank you!  I'd never seen the ?'s before so was stumped.

Richard 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Curry [mailto:pacman-cu <at> kosh.dhis.org] 
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 4:37 PM
To: Richard Woolley
Cc: 9788 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9788: chown gets permission denied

Richard Woolley writes:
> 
> When trying to change ownership of the files in a directory, I 
> mistakenly h= ad the settings wrong in the command, so I got the 
> following ls -l total 16
> drw-rw-r--  4  user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 doc/
> drw-rw-r-- 24 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:27 modules/
> drw-rw-r--  3 user proj1 4096 Sep 28 14:23 project/

Your first problem is that you've got some directories here with read permission but no x permission. In that situation, this happens:

> ls -l project
> total 0
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? compile.conf
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? myproject.conf
> ?--------- ? ? ? ?            ? novas_fli.so

ls can read the directory, getting the filenames, but the lack of x permission prevents it from getting any other information.

First chmod u+x doc modules project, then see what you get from ls -l on them.

--
Alan Curry

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