How to set permissions on directory, that will bequeath its permissions to all subdirectories?

Question

Is there a way to set permissions on a *nix directory, so that when a subdirectory is created, the subdirectory will be created with all the permissions as the parent directory?

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There's the following, but it does not seem to do all that I ask for:

On most systems, if a directory’s set-group-ID bit is set, newly created subfiles inherit the same group as the directory, and newly created subdirectories inherit the set-group-ID bit of the parent directory. On a few systems, a directory’s set-user-ID bit has a similar effect on the ownership of new subfiles and the set-user-ID bits of new subdirectories. These mechanisms let users share files more easily, by lessening the need to use chmod or chown to share new files.

Answer 1

When a sub-folder is created, the permission of the new sub-folder is defined by:

1. The properties of the user created the directory:

   a. user-id

   b. group id's

2. The defined umask

3. The parents folder default ACL (if exists)

Note: More info can be found in acl man

OBJECT CREATION AND DEFAULT ACLs

The access ACL of a file object is initialized when the object is created with any of the creat(), mkdir(), mknod(), mkfifo(), or open() functions. If a default ACL is associated with a directory, the mode parameter to the functions creating file objects and the default ACL of the directory are used to determine the ACL of the new object:

1. The new object inherits the default ACL of the containing directory as its access ACL.

2. The access ACL entries corresponding to the file permission bits are modified so that they contain no permissions that are not contained in the permissions specified by the mode parameter.

If no default ACL is associated with a directory, the mode parameter to the functions creating file objects and the file creation mask (see umask(2)) are used to determine the ACL of the new object:

1. The new object is assigned an access ACL containing entries of tag types ACL_USER_OBJ, ACL_GROUP_OBJ, and ACL_OTHER. The permissions of these entries are set to the permissions specified by the file creation mask.

2. The access ACL entries corresponding to the file permission bits are modified so that they contain no permissions that are not contained in the permissions specified by the mode parameter.

Instructions how to set a default ACL were copied from this Q&A

chmod g+s <directory>  //set gid 
setfacl -d -m g::rwx /<directory>  //set group to rwx default 
setfacl -d -m o::rx /<directory>   //set other

Next we can verify:

getfacl /<directory>

Output:

# file: ../<directory>/
# owner: <user>
# group: media
# flags: -s-
user::rwx
group::rwx
other::r-x
default:user::rwx
default:group::rwx
default:other::r-x

More info about umask can be found in umask man

   umask() sets the calling process's file mode creation mask (umask) to
   mask & 0777 (i.e., only the file permission bits of mask are used),
   and returns the previous value of the mask.

   The umask is used by open(2), mkdir(2), and other system calls that
   create files to modify the permissions placed on newly created files
   or directories.  Specifically, permissions in the umask are turned
   off from the mode argument to open(2) and mkdir(2).

   Alternatively, if the parent directory has a default ACL (see
   acl(5)), the umask is ignored, the default ACL is inherited, the
   permission bits are set based on the inherited ACL, and permission
   bits absent in the mode argument are turned off.  For example, the
   following default ACL is equivalent to a umask of 022:

       u::rwx,g::r-x,o::r-x

   Combining the effect of this default ACL with a mode argument of 0666
   (rw-rw-rw-), the resulting file permissions would be 0644 (rw-
   r--r--).

   The constants that should be used to specify mask are described under