CHOWN(1)                                  User Commands                                  CHOWN(1)



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

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

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

       --dereference
              affect  the  referent  of each symbolic link (this is the default), rather than the
              symbolic link itself

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect symbolic links 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 '/'

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

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

       The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the -R option is also spec‐
       ified.  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
       GNU coreutils online help: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report chown translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 2014 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+:  GNU  GPL  version  3  or
       later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This  is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY,
       to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
       chown(2)

       Full documentation at: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chown>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chown invocation'



GNU coreutils 8.23                          March 2015                                   CHOWN(1)