Change file time (touch)

Question

I would like to be able to change a file's modification date for use in a web application. For the time being I am testing this directly on the command line. Works fine on my mac, but when I do this on a linux server get error.

Command: /bin/touch -m -t 200906041200 /foo/bar/file.whatever

Error: /bin/touch: setting times of `/foo/bar/file.whatever': Operation not permitted

The file in question is 777.

Answer 1

Are you using noatime? That could explain the issue.

Answer 2

Even though the file permissions may be read/write for owner, group and other, I believe you need to actually own the file in order to change the atime for the file in question.

Answer 3

On Linux you must be the file owner (or root) to change the modification time to a time other than the current time. There are some other restrictions as well. man utime for complete details.