chown(2)

NAME

       chown - change file owner and group

SYNOPSIS

       chown [OPTION]... [OWNER][:[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.  If only  an  owner  (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 owner  is
       followed  by  a  colon  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 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 and group are given, but the
       owner is omitted, only the group of the files is changed; in this case,
       chown  performs  the same function as chgrp.  If only a colon is given,
       or if the entire operand is empty, neither the owner nor the  group  is
       changed.

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 (this is the default)

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful
              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 `:' following a symbolic OWNER.
       OWNER and GROUP may be numeric as well as symbolic.

EXAMPLES

       chown root /u
              Change the owner of /u to "root".

       chown root:staff /u
              Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".

       chown -hR root /u
              Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".

AUTHOR

       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS

       Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software.  You may redistribute copies  of  it  under  the
       terms       of       the      GNU      General      Public      License
       <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.  There is NO WARRANTY,  to  the
       extent permitted by law.

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 chown

       should give you access to the complete manual.

chown 5.93                       November 2005                        CHOWN(1)