Linux: Copying file/directory permissions

You can use this command to copy the full permissions (both standard Linux permissions and ACLs) from path1 to path2:

getfacl path1 | setfacl --set-file=- path2

The output from getfacl command should look something like this:

# file: path1
# owner: n
# group: n
user::rw-
group::r--
other::r--

By providing the --set-file=- option, we can use this exact output as an input to the setfacl command.

Alternatives

If you need to just copy the mode bits, you can use the chmod command:

chmod --reference path1 path2

The same syntax also works for chown and chgrp commands:

chown --reference path1 path2
chgrp --reference path1 path2

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