chmod: changing permissions of directory Operation not permitted

Question

I have done

chmod -R 644 .

inside the directory dir

My user's permissions are drw-r--r-- and i'm the owner of the directory

When trying chmod 755 dir, error is popped

chmod: changing permissions of dir Operation not permitted

The same error is popped when doing ls even as root

How to change permission back to 755 and allow its deletion and modification?

Answer 1

from the level above dir:

chmod -R a+x *dir*

to give all users (a) execute permission to all subdirectories and files (+x) or:

chmod -R a+X *dir*

to give all users execute permission to all subdirectories only (+X)

Answer 2

Since you've broken a tree of directory permissions with chmod -R you need to fix them all up. Run this from the directory above dir:

find dir -type d -exec chmod u=rwx,go=rx {} +
find dir \! -type d -exec chmod u=rw,go=r {} +

In case you're wondering, you need the x permission to access a directory. You need rx to be able to read it.

For those with a modern (GNU) version of chmod you may be able to do this all in one step. Symbolically this equates to "everyone (group/other) has the same as the owner, but remove write permissions from group/other"

chmod -R a=u,go-w dir

Answer 3

Hello, I think I have a solution to your problem. Here is the problem:

chmod 777

You did not put sudo so try putting sudo in like this:

sudo chmod 777