How to copy contents of a folder without affecting the permissions of destination folder?

Question

I want to copy all files and folders from one directory to another without changing the permissions of the destination directory.

Where origin folder is 555 and destination folder is 775. If I use command below, the destination is changed to 555. I don't want this.

cp -r /origin/. /destination

What is correct syntax to copy contents of /origin? So that /destination remains 775

I do not have sudo.

Answer 1

use rsync:

rsync -rlD /origin/ /destination/

The important thing is the / at the end of origin/, which tells rsync to copy the contents of the directory, not the directory itself. This way the toplevel directory isn't copied and /destination isn't changed except for files being added to it.

Switches explained:

-a, --archive               archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)

-r, --recursive             recurse into directories
-l, --links                 copy symlinks as symlinks
-p, --perms                 preserve permissions
-t, --times                 preserve modification times
-g, --group                 preserve group
-o, --owner                 preserve owner (super-user only)
-D                          same as --devices --specials

--devices               preserve device files (super-user only)
--specials              preserve special files

Answer 2

Instead of copying the directory itself, copy the files in it.

cp -r /origin/* /destination

If there are dot files (files whose name begins with the character .), they won't be copied, because * skips those. Use cp -r /origin/.[!.]* /destination to copy the dot files, and cp -r /origin/..?* /destination if there are files whose name begins with .. (apart from .. itself, which designates the parent directory).