macro and text revision (-mdoc version 3)

[unix-history] / usr / src / usr.sbin / chown / chown.8

diff --git a/usr/src/usr.sbin/chown/chown.8 b/usr/src/usr.sbin/chown/chown.8
index 203e1b0..bfab35c 100644 (file)
--- a/usr/src/usr.sbin/chown/chown.8
+++ b/usr/src/usr.sbin/chown/chown.8
@@ -1,36 +1,75 @@
-.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
-.\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
-.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
+.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991 The Regents of the University of California.
+.\" All rights reserved.

 .\"
 .\"

-.\"    @(#)chown.8     5.1 (Berkeley) %G%
+.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%

 .\"
 .\"

-.TH CHOWN 8 "18 July 1983"
-.UC 4
-.SH NAME
-chown \- change owner
-.SH SYNOPSIS
-.B /etc/chown
-[
-.B \-f
-]
-owner file ...
-.SH DESCRIPTION
-.I Chown
-changes the owner of the
-.I files
-to
-.IR owner .
-The owner may be either a decimal UID or
-a login name found in the password file.
-.PP
-Only the super-user can change owner,
-in order to simplify accounting procedures.
-No errors are reported when the
-.B \-f
-(force) option is given.
-.SH FILES
-/etc/passwd
-.SH "SEE ALSO"
-chgrp(1),
-chown(2),
-passwd(5), group(5)
+.\"     @(#)chown.8    6.5 (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 Rf
+.Op Ar owner
+.Op 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 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.
+.El
+.Pp
+The
+.Ar owner
+and
+.Ar group
+operands are both optional, but at least one must be specified; if
+the 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 owner and group of symbolic links are themselves changed instead
+of the file to which the link points.
+.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
+.Sh STANDARDS
+The
+.Nm chown
+command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.