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  specified.   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    2016  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'

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