1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)chown.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 03/31/94 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.Oo 17.Fl R 18.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 19.Oc 20.Op Fl f 21.Ar owner Op Ar :group 22.Ar file ... 23.Nm chown 24.Oo 25.Fl R 26.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 27.Oc 28.Op Fl f 29.Ar :group 30.Ar file ... 31.Sh DESCRIPTION 32.Nm Chown 33sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 34.Pp 35The options are as follows: 36.Bl -tag -width Ds 37.It Fl H 38If the 39.Fl R 40option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. 41(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.) 42.It Fl L 43If the 44.Fl R 45option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 46.It Fl P 47If the 48.Fl R 49option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 50.It Fl R 51Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 52in the files instead of just the files themselves. 53.It Fl f 54Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 55the exit status to reflect such failures. 56.El 57.Pp 58Symbolic links don't have owners, so unless the 59.Fl H 60or 61.Fl L 62option is set, 63.Nm chown 64on a symbolic link always succeeds and has no effect. 65The 66.Fl H , 67.Fl L 68and 69.Fl P 70options are ignored unless the 71.Fl R 72option is specified. 73In addition, these options override each other and the 74command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 75.Pp 76The 77.Ar owner 78and 79.Ar group 80operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. 81If the 82.Ar group 83operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 84.Pp 85The 86.Ar owner 87may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. 88If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a 89user name. 90The 91.Ar group 92may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. 93If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a 94group name. 95.Pp 96The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 97obvious security reasons. 98.Pp 99The 100.Nm chown 101utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 102.Sh COMPATIBILITY 103Previous versions of the 104.Nm chown 105utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 106This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 107group names may contain the dot character. 108.Pp 109Previous versions of the 110.Nm chown 111utility changed the owner of symbolic links specified on the command 112line. 113In this system, symbolic links do not have owners. 114.Sh SEE ALSO 115.Xr chgrp 1 , 116.Xr find 1 , 117.Xr chown 2 , 118.Xr fts 3 , 119.Xr symlink 7 120.Sh STANDARDS 121The 122.Nm chown 123command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 124