How to apply CHMOD command to any file with a specific name recursively in Linux?

Question

I need to know how to apply a CHMOD command to only files that have a specific name recursively?

chmod 755 -R filename

Something like above but it should apply to any filename that exists in any sub folders.

Answer 1

This will find all files named filename, recursively from the current directory, and pass them to chmod.

find -name filename | xargs chmod 755

See the manpages for find and xargs for more advanced options. In particular, look at the -print0 flag and corresponding -0 to xargs if you get errors about files with spaces in the name.

Answer 2

There's also a exec parameter in find that will do the same:

find . -name filename -exec chmod 755 {} \;

Answer 3

You can get the best of both worlds if you use the + operator to find to make it run chmod on many files at once.

find . -name filename -exec chmod 755 '{}' +

You should always put a ' around your {}, otherwise a filename with a space in it could mess things up. In this case it's not a problem, but I have a habit of doing it.