.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 The Regents of the University of California.
.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
.\" @(#)chown.8 6.10 (Berkeley) %G%
.Nd change file owner and group
sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
The options are as follows:
When encountering a symbolic link on the command line, follow it. All other
symbolic links encountered in the traversal are not followed.
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
in the files instead of just the files themselves.
Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
the exit status to reflect such failures.
When encountering a symbolic link anywhere in the traversal, follow it.
The ownership of a symbolic link is immutable, so that unless the
on a symbolic link is a no-op.
operands are both optional, however, one must be specified.
operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
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
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
The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for
obvious security reasons.
utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
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.
command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.