Lost Permission on Files using wrong chmod syntax Centos 5.5

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I was trying to remove write
permissions on an entire directory, and I used the incorrect command:

chmod 644 -r
sites/default

I meant to type

chmod -R 644
sites/default

The result was
this:

chmod: cannot access `644':
            No such file or directory

$ ls -als sites
total
            24
4 drwxr-xr-x 5 user group 4096 Jan 11 10:54 .
4 drwxrwxr-x 14
            user group 4096 Jan 11 10:11 ..
4 drwxr-xr-x 4 user group 4096 Jan 5 01:25
            all
4 d-w------- 3 user group 4096 Jan 11 10:43 default
4 -rw-r--r--
            1 user group 1849 Apr 15 2010
            example.sites.php

I
fixed the permissions on the default folder with

$ chmod 644
sites/default
But, the following ls shows a all the files with red backgrounds
and question marks. I can't access any files unless I am
root.

$ ls -als
            sites/default
total 0
? ?--------- ? ? ? ? ? .
?
            ?--------- ? ? ? ? ? ..
? ?--------- ? ? ? ? ?
            default.settings.php
? ?--------- ? ? ? ? ? files
? ?--------- ? ? ?
            ? ?
            settings.php

When
I log in as root, I can edit all of the files, and their permissions appear correctly. I
do not know how to undo the damage caused by using -r with chmod instead of
-R.

Any Suggestions?

Answer

First, do this:

chmod 755
            sites/default

The
output you are seeing is because you don't
have execute permission on the
directory:

$ mkdir -p
            foo/bar
$ touch foo/bar/a foo/bar/b foo/bar/c
$ ls -l
            foo
total 4
drwxr-xr-x 2 thedward thedward 4096 2011-01-11 10:28
            bar
$ ls -l foo/bar

total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1
            thedward thedward 0 2011-01-11 10:28 a
-rw-r--r-- 1 thedward thedward 0
            2011-01-11 10:28 b
-rw-r--r-- 1 thedward thedward 0 2011-01-11 10:28
            c
$ chmod 644 foo/bar
$ ls -l foo/bar
total
            0
-????????? ? ? ? ? ? a
-????????? ? ? ? ? ? b
-?????????
            ? ? ? ? ? c

$ chmod 755 foo/bar
$ ls -l
            foo/bar
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 thedward thedward 0 2011-01-11 10:28
            a
-rw-r--r-- 1 thedward thedward 0 2011-01-11 10:28 b
-rw-r--r-- 1
            thedward thedward 0 2011-01-11 10:28 c