Temporarily set permissive privileges and ownership for your Magento installation directory.

mage-set-temp-perms

#!/bin/bash

#Check root access

if [ "$UID" != 0 ]
then
   echo "This shell script must be run as root."
   exit 2
fi

#Variables declaration

GROUP_ACCESS=
ROOT_DIR='.' #Web root directory

if [ -n "$1" ] && [ -d "$1" ]
then
   ROOT_DIR="$1"
fi

#Functions declaration

check_magento_dir()
{
   if  [ ! -f "$1/app/Mage.php" ]
   then
      error 'Magento installation directory not found!'
   fi
}

error()
{
   echo "$@" 1>&2
   exit 1
}

set_user_perms()
{
   find "$ROOT_DIR" -type d \! -perm 700 -exec chmod 700 {} \;
   find "$ROOT_DIR" -type f \! -perm 600 -exec chmod 600 {} \;
}

set_user_and_group_perms()
{
   find "$ROOT_DIR" -type d \! -perm 770 -exec chmod 770 {} \;
   find "$ROOT_DIR" -type f \! -perm 660 -exec chmod 660 {} \;
}

#Main

check_magento_dir "$ROOT_DIR"

read -r -p "Allow group access ? [y/N] " answer

if [[ $answer =~ ^([yY][eE][sS]|[yY])$ ]]
then
    GROUP_ACCESS=true
fi

echo -n "Setting permissions for : $ROOT_DIR ..."

if [ -z $GROUP_ACCESS ]
then
   set_user_perms
else
   set_user_and_group_perms
fi

echo "Done!"