How To Bash Script For Mass Changes

Sep 7, 2012

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You can use some bash scripting to make for loops and have mass changes in a Linux Server. Follow the simple steps below.

Collect the data that is needed to be changed.

Here we will use the “find” command to look for 777 directories under user “whomever.”
find /home/whomever/public_html -type d -perm 777
What this does is find in directory /home/whomever/public_html, any directories (-type d) that are 777 permissions (-perm 777).
You can change this to work with whatever directories you want, permissions you want, etc.

Alright that’s neat, but kind of hard to read if you have a lot of 777 permissions in this directory. Let make them all go into a file.

Start with the same command, but we’ll add something to make it go into a file we create.
find /home/whomever/public_html -type d -perm 777 > badpermlist
What this does is take our query and creates a file called “badpermlist” where all the data will be put.

Now that we have our data, we can start with some basic scripting.

Verify your data

for each in `cat badpermlist` press -enter-
do press -enter-
ll -d $each press -enter-
done | more press -enter
This will show your data that is in the file.
IMPORTANT: the ` ` marks are the ones that are under the ~ key, NOT the apostrophe key

Change the data

for each in `cat badpermlist` press -enter-
do press -enter-
chmod 755 $each press -enter-
done press -enter-
Congrats, you just changed all those pesky 777 permissions to 755 like they should be.

Verify that the change took place because it is never a bad idea to check your work.

for each in `cat badpermlist` press -enter-
do press -enter-
ll -d $each press -enter-
done | more press -enter-
Now all the data that showed up as 777 should now show as 755.

Now as you can tell, there is a lot of potential to a very simple script like this. I hope this helps breakdown some basic concepts for you and helps you on your scripting way!

Note

Play with changing the items specified in a “for loop,” just remember what you changed so you can change it back!
Watch that you use the ` ` (backwards apostrophes) symbols under the ~ (til-day). If you use ‘ ‘ (apostrophes) it will NOT work!

Tags:

Linux

Raja Rajan

Raja has been obsessed with technology and Cricket for as long as he can remember. Nowadays, he works as a freelance developer and writer for PrimeInspiration.com

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