Recursively changing file and directory permissions the elegant way on *NIX environments

Recursively changing file and directory permissions the elegant way on *NIX environments 25/02/2011

Something I've needed to do continuously is change permissions on directories or files only recursively on a linux / unix box. I'm sure just about every sysadmin has needed to do this sometime in their lives. Well, the most elegant way I could think of is to do the following:

For directories only:
find /location -type d -exec chmod 775 {} \;
The above example does the following:

Finds all directories in the location specified (-type d)
Executes "chmod 775" on all directories found leaving files untouched
Permissions of 775 are RWX for owner, RWX for owner's group and RX for everyone else

For files only:
find /location -type f -exec chmod 664 {} \;
The above example does the following:

Finds all files in the location specified (-type f)
Executes "chmod 664" on all files found leaving directories untouched
Permissions of 664 are RW for the owner, RW for the owner's group and R for everyone else.

Have fun!

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