'Permission denied' issue when executing a file downloaded from Github

Question

I have compiled a program on my Ubuntu 16.04. When

ls -l <filename>

is run, it produces the following output on my computer which suggests that anybody can execute this file(i guess?) -

-rwxr-xr-x 1 ritwik ritwik 10132280 May  4 12:44 <filename>

Then I uploaded this file to github. Now, when someone downloads this file from my github repo and executes it on their computer, it throws the 'Permission Denied' error. However, when they run -

chmod u+x <filename>

and then execute the file, no such error occurs.

How can I change permissions before uploading so that the users do not have to change the permissions themselves (do not have to do that chmod thing) ?

Define "downloaded". Are they cloning the git repository? Are they downloading a file from the releases section (if so what format)? — Quentin, May 04 '21 at 10:22
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1580596/how-do-i-make-git-ignore-file-mode-chmod-changes — Quentin, May 04 '21 at 11:46

TobTobXX · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-05T12:41:57.457

0

This is not directly possible, since when you download a file, it gets created on the recipients machine and then filled by what arrives over the network.

You can make a tar(1) archive. This preserves the execute bit and when the recipient extracts it, the tar binary will set the x bit again.

edited May 05 '21 at 12:41

answered May 04 '21 at 10:23

TobTobXX

418
4
17

Thanks for your answer. So all I have to do is-> tar -czvf filename.tar.gz /path/to/myfile , (no additional flags required for preserving the permissions, right?) and then upload this to my repo? – ritvix May 04 '21 at 10:34

'Permission denied' issue when executing a file downloaded from Github

1 Answers1