I would like to take the opportunity to plug my module File::Find::Rule::Permissions :-) It makes it pretty easy to find files or directories based on whether a given user (not necessarily the current user) can read or write them.

use strict; 
use File::Find; 
my $dir = '/webdir/pathhere';
find(\&ReadPerm, $dir); 
sub ReadPerm { 
  if (! -w $_) { 
    print "$File::Find::name\n"; 
  }
}

Thanks, this will let me know if I cant write AND/OR read any file or directory?

use strict; 
use File::Find; 
my $dir = '/webdir/pathhere';
find(\&ReadPerm, $dir); 
sub ReadPerm { 
  if (! -w $_) { 
    print "$File::Find::name\n"; 
  }
}
[download]

If you want to find out both read and write, then you'll need to do 2 tests: one for read, one for write. Simply do a test with '-r' as well, such as the following (not tested, may/may not work as-is):

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
$|++;

use strict; 
use File::Find; 

my $dir = '/path/to/dir';
find(\&wanted, '/path/to/dir');

sub wanted { 
 if (not -w $_ && not -r $_) {
  print "Cannot read or write $File::Find::name.\n";
 } elsif (not -w) {
  print "Cannot write $File::Find::name.\n";
 } elsif (not -r) {
  print "Cannot read $File::Find::name.\n";
 }
}
[download]

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If the above content is missing any vital points or you feel that any of the information is misleading, incorrect or irrelevant, please feel free to downvote the post. At the same time, please reply to this node or /msg me to inform me as to what is wrong with the post, so that I may update the node to the best of my ability.

As root you should be able to read and write all files. The exception is remote files shared over a protocol like NFS, but those will most likely appear to be readable/writable until you actually try.

For example:

# id -u
0
# ls -ld noperms
----------    1 sgifford sgifford        0 Jul 30 23:37 noperms
# perl -e 'print STDOUT (-w "noperms" ? "" : "un") . "writable\n";'
writable

What sort of problem are you running into that requires you to do this?