1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2003 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" from: @(#)chown.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94 29.\" $NetBSD: chown.8,v 1.6 2012/10/23 17:30:59 wiz Exp $ 30.\" 31.Dd October 22, 2012 32.Dt CHOWN 8 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm chown 36.Nd change file owner and group 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Oo 40.Fl R 41.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 42.Oc 43.Op Fl fhv 44.Ar owner Ns Op Ar :group 45.Ar 46.Nm 47.Oo 48.Fl R 49.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 50.Oc 51.Op Fl fhv 52.Ar :group 53.Ar 54.Nm 55.Oo 56.Fl R 57.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 58.Oc 59.Op Fl fhv 60.Fl Fl reference=rfile 61.Ar 62.Sh DESCRIPTION 63.Nm 64sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 65.Pp 66The options are as follows: 67.Bl -tag -width Ds 68.It Fl H 69If the 70.Fl R 71option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. 72(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.) 73.It Fl L 74If the 75.Fl R 76option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 77.It Fl P 78If the 79.Fl R 80option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 81.It Fl R 82Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 83in the files instead of just the files themselves. 84.It Fl f 85Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 86the exit status to reflect such failures. 87.It Fl h 88If 89.Ar file 90is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed. 91.It Fl v 92Cause 93.Nm 94to be verbose, showing files as they are processed. 95.El 96.Pp 97The 98.Fl H , 99.Fl L 100and 101.Fl P 102options are ignored unless the 103.Fl R 104option is specified. 105In addition, these options override each other and the 106command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 107.Pp 108The 109.Fl L 110option cannot be used together with the 111.Fl h 112option. 113.Pp 114The 115.Ar owner 116and 117.Ar group 118operands are both optional, however, one must be specified; alternatively, 119both the owner and group may be specified using a reference 120.Ar rfile 121specified using the 122.Fl Fl reference 123argument. 124If the 125.Ar group 126operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 127.Pp 128The 129.Ar owner 130may be either a user name or a numeric user ID. 131The 132.Ar group 133may be either a group name or a numeric group ID. 134Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and 135doesn't have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup 136is always done first. 137Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken 138as a number. 139.Pp 140The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 141obvious security reasons. 142.Pp 143Unless invoked by the super-user, 144.Nm 145clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent 146accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id 147programs. 148.Pp 149The 150.Nm 151utility exits 0 on success, and \*[Gt]0 if an error occurs. 152.Sh COMPATIBILITY 153Previous versions of the 154.Nm 155utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 156This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 157group names may contain the dot character. 158.Sh SEE ALSO 159.Xr chflags 1 , 160.Xr chgrp 1 , 161.Xr find 1 , 162.Xr chown 2 , 163.Xr lchown 2 , 164.Xr fts 3 , 165.Xr symlink 7 166.Sh STANDARDS 167The 168.Nm 169command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 170.Pp 171The 172.Fl v 173option and the use of ``#'' to force a numeric lookup 174are extensions to 175.St -p1003.2 . 176