I inadvertently made a backup copy of a directory recursively and forgot the -a (--preserve) switch when doing so. This damaged my backup directory (which contains data we need to access).

The directory and all of its child folders and files comprise an installation of an application including postgress DB and solr files. The original copy was used to for a failed re-config attempt. Now I need to use the backup copy to start over, only the ownership of the backup copy is now root across everything and it is no longer usable (processes won't run due to ownership problems I created when I forgot the -a on the cp -r).

I've re-installed a clean copy of the application into a 3rd location now (which has the correct owner/perms) and need to copy the owner/perms from this good directory over onto the damaged directory. What is the best way (if even possible) to do this.

(I've Googled and seen things from perl scripting to setfacl/getfacl to do this but am unfortunately still confused). Apologies if this seems a dumb question. Thanks.