Permissions & Security (Chmod/Chown/ACLs/SELinux/AppArmor)
Stop chown from being a dangerous foot-gun when symlinks get involved
🧩 The Challenge
You are trying to fix permissions on a directory tree, but accidentally follow a symlink and end up chowning your entire root filesystem. I’ve seen a junior admin nuke a production server’s system binaries doing exactly this.
đź’ˇ The Fix
Use the flags that force the utility to ignore symlinks entirely so you don’t accidentally walk out of your target directory and into a recursive nightmare.
chown -hR user:group /path/to/target⚙️ Why It Works
Adding the -h flag tells the tool to operate on the symlink itself rather than the target file it points to, effectively keeping your recursive operations safely contained.
🚀 Pro-Tip: Always double-check your path with a dry-run find command before throwing a recursive chown at a production mount.
Linux Tips & Tricks | © ngelinux.com | 8/8/2026