Big Problem - I accidently chmod 000 a lot of files!

[Jemshi]

single dot (.) is your current directory and
double dot (..) is the parent directory

so giving .* includes .. also. Better method to include all the files and folders (starting with dot too) is

chmod -R user.group directory

from its parent directory. And if you want to spare the directory, revert it back with

chmod olduser.oldgroup directory

Or, standing inside the directory,

find . -exec chmod user.grop {} \; will also give the same result

HTH

[DigitalN]

This is actually a common mistake ... I restored a server just at christmas, Christmas day for a client that did this

< EDIT referred back to ticket - this is what happened in my case with one client >
# ls -la /tmp
# rm -rf *

Only he wasn't in /tmp - he was in /
</ EDIT>
Believing that it would delete all files in /tmp that were prefixed with .

You should really use the full system path to files when using wildcard deletes and chmod's, it's good practice.

[noimad1]

Can someone tell me why .* caused it to go up to a higher directory? Does that .* signify root directory? If I try ls . I get a listing for current directory, but if I try ls .* I get a listing for root directory.

I don't know if it was the .* by itself. I'm pretty sure it was the -R (recursive) that killed it. Becuase the .* by itself should only change the directory you are currently in. But the recursive does the directory you are in and then goes above it and does all directories above it and so on....

[dianaward]

directory-wise???

[noimad1]

directory-wise???

I believe the .* will actually do the . and the .. - so it will do the current directory and parent directory and anything above it.

Needless to say I have learned my lesson on this one and will be much more careful when it comes to these types of edits....I just got in a hurry and wasn't paying attention.