Cfrgtkky

I made a bit of a mess of a Thunderbird migration (call it case A), and ended up with 755 on all folders and files in a Thunderbird profile (stupid of me, I know).

Anyway, looking at a different install of Thunderbird (case B), I saw that the profile folder had a mix of 700 and 777 on folders, and 600, 644, 755, 777 on files. There are more than likely other octals that can be added to both of those lists!

Case B will have been through several migrations before (i.e. moving the profile xxxxxxxx.default folder from machine to machine), so exactly when those various folders and files got those various permissions I have no idea. Are they 'correct'? Does the 'move the profile folder' method undermine any changes in later versions of the software? If so, is there a better migration method?

In terms of changing case A, I've got no way of knowing what to change to what (it all seems to run OK at 755 anyway), and I'm sure it would be a long potentially error strewn process. So my question is, do I;

1. just leave it all at 755


2. or do I somehow extract messages and addresses into a clean install with some tool that sets the permissions to what they should be, if so what tool?

I just examined my ~/.thunderbird/abcd0123.default
directory and the files therein and observed the following:

Files

• Allmost all files have -rw-------, in particular none has an x flag.


• Some files have -rw-r--r--
  


• Some files have -rw-rw-r--
  


• There doesn't seem to be a pattern which file has -rw-rw-r-- and which has -rw-------.
  Some *.msf files have -rw-rw-r-- while others have -rw------- and they aren't any
  different.


• The additional group rw is irrelevant because all files are owned by me and my group anyway
  and no one else (besides me) is member of my group.

Directories

• Almost all directories have drwx------
  


• Two (of 56 in my case) have drwxr-xr-x but again: I don't see why because they aren't any different from the others.

Conclusion

If you want to cleanup the permissions, I suggest the following commands (make sure to exit Thunderbird first):

cd ~/.thunderbird

find $your_profile_dir -type f -exec chmod 600 {} +

find $your_profile_dir -type d -exec chmod 700 {} +

Also make sure all files are owned by you and your group:

cd ~/.thunderbird

sudo chown -R dan:dan $your_profile_dir

# (replace "dan" with your actual username)

Maybe it's advisable to make a backup first, e.g.:

cd ~/.thunderbird

tar -c -z -f $your_profile_dir.tar.gz $your_profile_dir

^{(whispers) I wouldn't because if the new permissions turn out to be wrong you can
simply revert them back to your current situation (find … chmod 755 …)}