CHOWN linux command manual

CHOWN(1)                      User Commands                        CHOWN(1)



NAME
       chown - change file owner and group

SYNOPSIS
       chown [OPTION]... OWNER[:[GROUP]] FILE...
       chown [OPTION]... :GROUP FILE...
       chown [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...

DESCRIPTION
       This  manual  page  documents the GNU version of chown.  chown changes
       the user and/or group ownership of each given file, according  to  its
       first non-option argument, which is interpreted as follows.  If only a
       user name (or numeric user ID) is given, that user is made  the  owner
       of  each given file, and the files' group is not changed.  If the user
       name is followed by a colon or dot and a group name (or numeric  group
       ID),  with no spaces between them, the group ownership of the files is
       changed as well.  If a colon or dot but no group name follows the user
       name,  that  user  is made the owner of the files and the group of the
       files is changed to that user's login group.  If the colon or dot  and
       group  are  given, but the user name is omitted, only the group of the
       files is changed; in this case, chown performs the  same  function  as
       chgrp.

OPTIONS
       Change  the  owner  and/or  group  of each FILE to OWNER and/or GROUP.
       With --reference, change the owner and group of each FILE to those  of
       RFILE.

       -c, --changes
              like verbose but report only when a change is made

       --dereference
              affect the referent of each symbolic link, rather than the sym-
              bolic link itself

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file  (use-
              ful only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink)

       --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP
              change the owner and/or group of each file only if its  current
              owner  and/or  group match those specified here.  Either may be
              omitted, in which case a match is not required for the  omitted
              attribute.

       --no-preserve-root do not treat '/' specially (the default)

       --preserve-root
              fail to operate recursively on '/'

       -f, --silent, --quiet
              suppress most error messages

       --reference=RFILE
              use   RFILE's  owner  and  group  rather  than  the  specifying
              OWNER:GROUP values

       -R, --recursive
              operate on files and directories recursively

       -v, --verbose
              output a diagnostic for every file processed

       The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the  -R
       option  is  also  specified.   If more than one is specified, only the
       final one takes effect.

       -H     if a command line argument is a symbolic link to  a  directory,
              traverse it

       -L     traverse every symbolic link to a directory encountered

       -P     do not traverse any symbolic links (default)

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
              output version information and exit

       Owner  is  unchanged  if  missing.  Group is unchanged if missing, but
       changed to login group if implied by a ':'.  OWNER and  GROUP  may  be
       numeric as well as symbolic.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to .

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This  is  free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There
       is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU-
       LAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       The  full  documentation  for chown is maintained as a Texinfo manual.
       If the info and chown programs are properly installed  at  your  site,
       the command

              info coreutils chown

       should give you access to the complete manual.



chown (coreutils) 5.2.1            May 2004                          CHOWN(1)