1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)chown.8 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/29/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt CHOWN 8 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm chown 13.Nd change file owner and group 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm chown 16.Op Fl HRfh 17.Ar owner Op Ar :group 18.Ar file ... 19.Nm chown 20.Op Fl HRfh 21.Ar :group 22.Ar file ... 23.Sh DESCRIPTION 24.Nm Chown 25sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 26.Pp 27The options are as follows: 28.Bl -tag -width Ds 29.It Fl H 30When encountering a symbolic link on the command line, follow it. All other 31symbolic links encountered in the traversal are not followed. 32.It Fl R 33Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 34in the files instead of just the files themselves. 35.It Fl f 36Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 37the exit status to reflect such failures. 38.It Fl h 39When encountering a symbolic link anywhere in the traversal, follow it. 40.El 41.Pp 42The ownership of a symbolic link is immutable, so unless the 43.Fl h 44or 45.Fl H 46flag is set, 47.Nm chown 48on a symbolic link is a no-op. 49.Pp 50The 51.Ar owner 52and 53.Ar group 54operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. 55If the 56.Ar group 57operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 58.Pp 59The 60.Ar owner 61may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. 62If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a 63user name. 64The 65.Ar group 66may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. 67If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a 68group name. 69.Pp 70The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 71obvious security reasons. 72.Pp 73The 74.Nm chown 75utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 76.Sh COMPATIBILITY 77Previous versions of the 78.Nm chown 79utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 80This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 81group names may contain the dot character. 82.Sh SEE ALSO 83.Xr chgrp 1 , 84.Xr find 1 , 85.Xr chown 2 , 86.Xr fts 3 , 87.Xr symlink 7 88.Sh STANDARDS 89The 90.Nm chown 91command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 92