Comment 20 for bug 165113

I'm going to make the leap and mark this bug as invalid. I hope it's not premature...let me explain.

First, I created the following 'test' directories and files under my home directory:

[drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test
|-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_a
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_b
| `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_c
|-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_a
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_b
| `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_c
`-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_a
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_b
    `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_c

I then completed the following steps:

1) Open up Nautilus (non-gksudo)
2) Right click on the the "apple" directory and choose properties --> Permissions (tab)
3) Change the "Others/File Access" from "---" to "None"
4) Click "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files" - This MUST be done right after changing the permission setting to "None". Do not click close first!!!

Now you will see that the permissions to the files under apple are now changed. The default read permission has been removed.

[drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test
|-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple
| |-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_a
| |-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_b
| `-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_c
|-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_a
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_b
| `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_c
`-- [drwxr-xr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_a
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_b
    `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_c

Here's one more example.

1) Right click on the the "permissions_test" directory and choose properties --> Permissions (tab)
2) Change the "Group/Folder Access" from "Access Files" to "Create and delete files"
3) Click "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files" - This does NOT need to be done at the same time. You can click "close" and re-open the properties window and click "Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files". Folder access settings seem to be retained whereas the file access settings are not.

Now here are the results. As you can see all the sub-directories now have read/write/execute for the group properties where before they had just read/execute access.

[drwxrwxr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test
|-- [drwxrwxr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple
| |-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_a
| |-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_b
| `-- [-rw-r----- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/apple/seed_c
|-- [drwxrwxr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_a
| |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_b
| `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/grape/vine_c
`-- [drwxrwxr-x johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_a
    |-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_b
    `-- [-rw-r--r-- johndoe johndoe ] ./permissions_test/plumb/pit_c

My last test, group ownership, failed. This bums me out as this is what I was hoping to do a few weeks ago when I found this bug report. But, I don't think this is necessarily a bug, but a missing feature.

The sentence below is copied from Nautilus' help file - file:///usr/share/gnome/help/user-guide/C/user-guide.xml#nautilus-permissions-folder

"To set permissions for all the items contained in a folder, set the File Access and Execute properties and click on Apply permissions to enclosed files."

Nowhere does it mention anything about being able set OWNERSHIP recursively. Only permissions.

The title of this bug is "gksudo nautilus won't set ownership/permissions on files below". If there are any valid arguments to keep the bug open, I think it should be renamed to "Nautilus won't recursively set ownership of files and directories". But again, this just seems like a feature request to me.