usr/src/usr.sbin/chown/chown.8

.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993
.\"     The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\"
.\"     @(#)chown.8     8.1 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.Dd
.Dt CHOWN 8
.Os BSD 4
.Sh NAME
.Nm chown
.Nd change file owner and group
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm chown
.Op Fl HRfh
.Ar owner Op Ar :group
.Ar file ...
.Nm chown
.Op Fl HRfh
.Ar :group
.Ar file ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Chown
sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl H
When encountering a symbolic link on the command line, follow it.  All other
symbolic links encountered in the traversal are not followed.
.It Fl R
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
in the files instead of just the files themselves.
.It Fl f
Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
the exit status to reflect such failures.
.It Fl h
When encountering a symbolic link anywhere in the traversal, follow it.
.El
.Pp
The ownership of a symbolic link is immutable, so unless the
.Fl h
or
.Fl H
flag is set,
.Nm chown
on a symbolic link is a no-op.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
and
.Ar group
operands are both optional, however, one must be specified.
If the
.Ar group
operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
user name.
The
.Ar group
may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
group name.
.Pp
The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for
obvious security reasons.
.Pp
The
.Nm chown
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the
.Nm chown
utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name.
This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and
group names may contain the dot character.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chgrp 1 ,
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr chown 2 ,
.Xr fts 3 ,
.Xr symlink 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm chown
command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.