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 1.14 2023/05/20 00:54:15 pgoyette Exp $ 30.\" 31.Dd May 19, 2023 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 dfhv 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 dfhv 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 dfhv 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. 65Symbolic links named by arguments are silently left unchanged unless 66.Fl h 67is used. 68.Pp 69The options are as follows: 70.Bl -tag -width Ds 71.It Fl H 72If the 73.Fl R 74option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. 75(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.) 76.It Fl L 77If the 78.Fl R 79option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 80.It Fl P 81If the 82.Fl R 83option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 84.It Fl R 85Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 86in the files instead of just the files themselves. 87.It Fl d 88Do not attempt to update a file's owner or group or its set-user-id 89and set-group-id bits if they are all already set to the desired values. 90.It Fl f 91Do not report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 92the exit status to reflect such failures. 93.It Fl h 94If 95.Ar file 96is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed. 97.It Fl v 98Cause 99.Nm 100to be verbose, showing files as they are processed. 101.El 102.Pp 103The 104.Fl H , 105.Fl L 106and 107.Fl P 108options are ignored unless the 109.Fl R 110option is specified. 111In addition, these options override each other and the 112command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 113The default is as if the 114.Fl P 115option had been specified. 116.Pp 117The 118.Fl L 119option cannot be used together with the 120.Fl h 121option. 122.Pp 123The 124.Ar owner 125and 126.Ar group 127operands are both optional, however, one must be specified; alternatively, 128both the owner and group may be specified using a reference 129.Ar rfile 130specified using the 131.Fl Fl reference 132argument. 133If the 134.Ar group 135operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 136.Pp 137The 138.Ar owner 139may be either a user name or a numeric user ID. 140The 141.Ar group 142may be either a group name or a numeric group ID. 143Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and 144does not have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup 145is always done first. 146Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken 147as a number. 148.Pp 149The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 150obvious security reasons. 151.Pp 152Unless invoked by the super-user, 153.Nm 154clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent 155accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id 156programs. 157.Sh EXIT STATUS 158.Ex -std chown 159.Sh COMPATIBILITY 160Previous versions of the 161.Nm 162utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 163This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 164group names may contain the dot character. 165.Sh SEE ALSO 166.Xr chflags 1 , 167.Xr chgrp 1 , 168.Xr find 1 , 169.Xr chown 2 , 170.Xr lchown 2 , 171.Xr fts 3 , 172.Xr symlink 7 173.Sh STANDARDS 174The 175.Nm 176command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 177.Pp 178The 179.Fl v 180and 181.Fl d 182options and the use of ``#'' to force a numeric lookup 183are extensions to 184.St -p1003.2 . 185.Sh HISTORY 186A 187.Nm 188utility appeared in 189.At v1 . 190