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
−−dereference-
affect the referent of each symbolic link (this is
the default), rather than the symbolic link itself
−h, −−no−dereference-
affect each symbolic link 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 `/'
−f, −−silent, −−quiet-
suppress most error messages
−−reference=RFILE-
use RFILE's owner and group rather than specifying
OWNER:GROUP values
−R, −−recursive-
operate on files and directories recursively
−v, −−verbose-
output a diagnostic for every file processed
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
Change the owner of /u to "root".
Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".
Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".
AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.
REPORTING BUGS
Report bugs to <bug−coreutils@gnu.org>.
SEE ALSO
chown(2)
The full documentation for chown is maintained as a Texinfo
manual. If the info
and chown
programs are properly installed at your site, the command
should give you access to the complete manual.
| COPYRIGHT |
|
Copyright © 2007 Free Software Foundation,
Inc.
This is free software. You may redistribute
copies of it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. There
is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
|
