Fix drupal 6 file permissioins

If you need to fix permissions repeatedly then the following script will help you, it is based on the guidelines given above and performs some checks before any modification to ensure it is not applied on files/directories outside your drupal installation.

#!/bin/bash
if [ $(id -u) != 0 ]; then
        printf "This script must be run as root.\n"
        exit 1
fi
drupal_path=${1%/}
drupal_user=${2}
httpd_group="${3:-www-data}"
# Help menu
print_help() {
cat <<-HELP
This script is used to fix permissions of a Drupal installation
you need to provide the following arguments:
1) Path to your Drupal installation.
2) Username of the user that you want to give files/directories ownership.
3) HTTPD group name (defaults to www-data for Apache).
Usage: (sudo) bash ${0##*/} --drupal_path=PATH --drupal_user=USER --httpd_group=GROUP
Example: (sudo) bash ${0##*/} --drupal_path=/usr/local/apache2/htdocs --drupal_user=john --httpd_group=www-data
HELP
exit 0
}
# Parse Command Line Arguments
while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        case "$1" in
                --drupal_path=*)
drupal_path="${1#*=}"
;;
--drupal_user=*)
drupal_user="${1#*=}"
;;
--httpd_group=*)
httpd_group="${1#*=}"
;;
--help) print_help;;
*)
printf "Invalid argument, run --help for valid arguments.\n";
exit 1
esac
shift
done
if [ -z "${drupal_path}" ] || [ ! -d "${drupal_path}/sites" ] || [ ! -f "${drupal_path}/core/modules/system/system.module" ] && [ ! -f "${drupal_path}/modules/system/system.module" ]; then
printf "Please provide a valid Drupal path.\n"
print_help
exit 1
fi
if [ -z "${drupal_user}" ] || [ $(id -un ${drupal_user} 2> /dev/null) != "${drupal_user}" ]; then
printf "Please provide a valid user.\n"
print_help
exit 1
fi
cd $drupal_path
printf "Changing ownership of all contents of "${drupal_path}":\n user => "${drupal_user}" \t group => "${httpd_group}"\n"
chown -R ${drupal_user}:${httpd_group} .
printf "Changing permissions of all directories inside "${drupal_path}" to "rwxr-x---"...\n"
find . -type d -exec chmod u=rwx,g=rx,o= '{}' \;
printf "Changing permissions of all files inside "${drupal_path}" to "rw-r-----"...\n"
find . -type f -exec chmod u=rw,g=r,o= '{}' \;
printf "Changing permissions of "files" directories in "${drupal_path}/sites" to "rwxrwx---"...\n"
cd sites
find . -type d -name files -exec chmod ug=rwx,o= '{}' \;
printf "Changing permissions of all files inside all "files" directories in "${drupal_path}/sites" to "rw-rw----"...\n"
printf "Changing permissions of all directories inside all "files" directories in "${drupal_path}/sites" to "rwxrwx---"...\n"
for x in ./*/files; do
find ${x} -type d -exec chmod ug=rwx,o= '{}' \;
find ${x} -type f -exec chmod ug=rw,o= '{}' \;
done
echo "Done settings proper permissions on files and directories"

Copy the code above to a file, name it "fix-permissions.sh" and run it as follows:
sudo bash fix-permissions.sh --drupal_path=your/drupal/path --drupal_user=your_user_name

Note: The server group name is assumed "www-data", if it differs use the --httpd_group=GROUP argument.

source