What is the Python way for recursively setting file permissions?

Question

What's the "python way" to recursively set the owner and group to files in a directory? I could just pass a 'chown -R' command to shell, but I feel like I'm missing something obvious.

I'm mucking about with this:

import os  
path = "/tmp/foo"  
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):  
  for momo in dirs:  
    os.chown(momo, 502, 20)

This seems to work for setting the directory, but fails when applied to files. I suspect the files are not getting the whole path, so chown fails since it can't find the files. The error is:

'OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'foo.html'

What am I overlooking here?

Answer 1

The dirs and files lists are all always relative to root - i.e., they are the basename() of the files/folders, i.e. they don't have a / in them (or \ on windows). You need to join the dirs/files to root to get their whole path if you want your code to work to infinite levels of recursion:

import os  
path = "/tmp/foo"
    
# Change permissions for the top-level folder
os.chmod(path, 502, 20)

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):
  # set perms on sub-directories  
  for momo in dirs:
    os.chown(os.path.join(root, momo), 502, 20)

  # set perms on files
  for momo in files:
    os.chown(os.path.join(root, momo), 502, 20)

Surprisingly, the shutil module doesn't have a function for this.

Answer 2

As correctly pointed out above, the accepted answer misses top-level files and directories. The other answers use os.walk then loop through dirnames and filenames. However, os.walk goes through dirnames anyway, so you can skip looping through dirnames and just chown the current directory (dirpath):

def recursive_chown(path, owner):
    for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(path):
        shutil.chown(dirpath, owner)
        for filename in filenames:
            shutil.chown(os.path.join(dirpath, filename), owner)

Answer 3

I could just pass a 'chown -R' command to shell

This is the simplest way, and gets lost in the question a bit, so just for clarity, you can do this in one line if you don't care about Windows:

os.system('chown -R 502 /tmp/foo')

Answer 4

import os  
path = "/tmp/foo"  
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(path):  
  for momo in dirs:  
    os.chown(momo, 502, 20)
  for file in files:
     fname = os.path.join(root, file)
     os.chown(fname, aaa, bb)

substitute aaa and bb as you please

Answer 5

try os.path.join(root,momo) that will give you full path

Answer 6

The accepted answer misses top level files. This is the actual equivalent of chown -R.

import os

path = "/tmp/foo"

os.chown(path, 502, 20)
for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(path):
    for dname in dirnames:
        os.chown(os.path.join(dirpath, dname), 502, 20)
    for fname in filenames:
        os.chown(os.path.join(dirpath, fname), 502, 20)

Answer 7

Here is a function i wrote that uses glob to recursively list files and change their permissions.

import os
import glob
def recursive_file_permissions(path,mode,uid=-1,gid=-1):
        '''
        Recursively updates file permissions on a given path.
        UID and GID default to -1, and mode is required
        '''
    for item in glob.glob(path+'/*'):
        if os.path.isdir(item):
            recursive_file_permissions(os.path.join(path,item),mode,uid,gid)
        else:
            try:
                os.chown(os.path.join(path,item),uid,gid)
                os.chmod(os.path.join(path,item),mode)
            except:
                print('File permissions on {0} not updated due to error.'.format(os.path.join(path,item)))

it's not perfect, but got me where I needed to be

Answer 8

Don't forget the for f in files loop, either. Similarly, remember to os.path.join(root, f) to get the full path.

Answer 9

"""
Requires python 3
Accepts name or id
Usage:
  chown.py -p /temp/folder -u user  -g group -r true
  or
  chown.py -p /temp/folder -u uid -g gid -r 1
  user, group, and recursive are optional
  But must supply at least one of user or group
Example: sudo chown.py -p /temp/filename -u some_user 
"""
import argparse, os, sys
from shutil import chown
user = group = recursive = ''
parser=argparse.ArgumentParser()
parser.add_argument('-p', '--path')  # help='file/path'
parser.add_argument('-u', '--user')   # , help='user'
parser.add_argument( '-g','--group')   # , help='group'
parser.add_argument('-r', '--recursive', help=1)  # , help='recursive'

args=parser.parse_args()
path = args.path
if not path:
    raise Exception('missing path')
if args.user:
    user = args.user
if args.group:
    user = args.group
if args.recursive:
    recursive = True

if not user and not group:
    raise Exception('must supply user, group, or both')

def change_owner(path, user='', group='')
    if user and not group:
        chown(path, user=user)
    elif not user and group:
        chown(path, group=group)
    else:
        chown(path, user, group)

change_owner(path, user, group)
if recursive:
    for dirpath, dirnames, filenames in os.walk(path):
        for dname in dirnames:
            change_owner(os.path.join(dirpath, dname), user, group)
        for fname in filenames:
            change_owner(os.path.join(dirpath, fname), user, group)

Answer 10

use os.lchown instead of os.chown for changing link themselves and files together.