[sllug-members]: CHMOD Big Oops!

[Jarom Hatch]

David D Turley wrote:
> Ok, lets say I "accidently" executed the command:
>
> chmod -R 777 .
>
> from the root directory.  What do I need to do to re-secure my system and
> undo this big oops?  
>
> System: Debian - Etch
>   

"He who plays in root eventually kills tree"

That said, there isn't a history for file permissions...  If you set 
every file on your hard drive to 777, there isn't any easy way to set 
everything back to what it used to be, short of restoring a backup (you 
have one, right?), reinstalling or manually going through file-by-file.  
And since you don't (likely) have a list of what the permissions used to 
be it's guesswork at best.

This is assuming that the question isn't "hypothetical"...  If you 
haven't done it yet, don't do it...  It'll save you some Tylenol...

That said, we'll probably see somebody reply with some magic (and 
surprisingly easy) way to fix it that I didn't know about and I'll be 
eating my hat...


Jarom