"chmod 755 ." means?

April 5, 2005 5:29 PM

ecommerce software directions say: "chmod 644 etc/config.php chmod 755 ." I set set chmod 644 for the first folder. What is "."? In other words, how do I "chmod 755 ." from above? This is ecommerce software, so permissions probably are more important than usual. I just had a hard time finding what the "." refers to when googling.
posted by parma to computers & internet (8 comments total)

"." is the current directory. If this makes you say "hhhuh", you might want some paid (or at least experienced) help setting up your software.
posted by boo_radley at 5:33 PM on April 5, 2005

To find out what directory you are currently in, type pwd
posted by pmbuko at 5:39 PM on April 5, 2005

That was my suspicion. Usually I see ../ and know exactly what that means. And wile I've installed many online scripts/programs, my unix knowledge is still rather limited, and I hadn't come across this before. Thank you!
posted by parma at 5:39 PM on April 5, 2005

For what it's worth, this is not UNIX specific. You would have encountered . in DOS for the same purpose (well, if you were ever a DOS user :-))
posted by wackybrit at 6:07 PM on April 5, 2005

. or ./ is the current directory
.. or ../ is the parent directory

These can be combined. The following are equivalent, and all mean "the parent of the parent directory":
../..
../../.
../.././

To add to the confusion, / means the root directory (the base of the directory tree). So /. is NOT necessarily the same as ./
posted by event at 6:28 PM on April 5, 2005

If the eCommerce software you're installing is mission-critical, then I second boo_radley's suggestion that you get some expert help on this.
posted by randomstriker at 7:22 PM on April 5, 2005

Xpath queries also offer the same syntax ("." for "this node"), FYI.
posted by matildaben at 9:29 PM on April 5, 2005

Thirded boo_radley and randomstriker. It's amazing how many customer credit card numbers are online simply because someone doesn't know exactly how chmod should work.
posted by Jairus at 12:45 AM on April 6, 2005