Recursively chmod/chown/chgrp all files and folder within a directory

This should be helpful. EDITED: some syntax errors corrected

    function fsmodify($obj) {
       $chunks = explode('/', $obj);
       chmod($obj, is_dir($obj) ? 0755 : 0644);
       chown($obj, $chunks[2]);
       chgrp($obj, $chunks[2]);
    }


    function fsmodifyr($dir) 
    {
       if($objs = glob($dir."/*")) {        
           foreach($objs as $obj) {
               fsmodify($obj);
               if(is_dir($obj)) fsmodifyr($obj);
           }
       }

       return fsmodify($dir);
    }   

You can perform a system call

system("/bin/chmod -R $mod $root");
system("/bin/chown -R $user $root");
system("/bin/chgrp -R $user $root");

of course you use escapeshellarg() or escapeshellcmd() in order to avoid executing arbitrary commands