On Ubuntu 12.04, the chown command doesn't seem to be working like it should
root@server:/var/www/folder/# ls -al
Running this puts out
drwxr-xr-x 11 776 sftponly 4096 Feb 17 14:08 Other_Folder
I need write permissions for the group, so I run:
chown -R 776 ./Other_Folder
Then when I run ls -al again, the output is still
drwxr-xr-x 11 776 sftponly 4096 Feb 17 14:08 Other_Folder
Answer
chown is used to change ownership of the file, not change permissions.
ls -al is not showing you who owns the file, just its permissions.
If root owns those files, you'll need to chown them properly, before you can change their permissions:
chown -R yourname:yourname folderName
Then as the owner you can change their permissions:
chmod -R 776 folderName
Edit: I double checked the syntax and it seems to be right, you'll likely need to use sudo to use them.