chown(1) manual page
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chown - change file ownership
chown [ -fhR ] owner[:group]
file...
SUNWcsu
The chown utility will set the user
ID
of the file named by each file to the user ID
specified by owner, and,
optionally, will set the group ID
to that specified by group.
If chown is
invoked by other than the super-user, the set-user-ID bit is cleared.
Only
the owner of a file (or the super-user) may change the owner of that file.
The operating system has a configuration option {_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED
},
to restrict ownership changes. When this option is in effect the owner of
the file is prevented from changing the owner ID
of the file. Only the
super-user can arbitrarily change owner ID
s whether or not this option is
in effect.
The following options are supported:
- -f
- Do not report errors.
- -h
- If the file is a symbolic link, change the owner of the symbolic link.
Without this option, the owner of the file referenced by the symbolic link
is changed.
- -R
- Recursive. chown descends through the directory, and any subdirectories,
setting the ownership ID
as it proceeds. When a symbolic link is encountered,
the owner of the target file is changed (unless the -h option is specified),
but no recursion takes place.
The following operands are supported:
- owner[:group]
- A user ID
and optional group ID
to be assigned to file. The
owner portion of this operand must be a user name from the user database
or a numeric user ID
. Either specifies a user ID
to be given to each file
named by file. If a numeric owner exists in the user database as a user
name, the user ID
number associated with that user name will be used as
the user ID
. Similarly, if the group portion of this operand is present,
it must be a group name from the group database or a numeric group ID
. Either
specifies a group ID to be given to each file. If a numeric group operand
exists in the group database as a group name, the group ID number associated
with that group name will be used as the group ID
.
- file
- A path name of a
file whose user ID
is to be modified.
See environ(5)
for descriptions
of the following environment variables that affect the execution of chown:
LC_CTYPE
, LC_MESSAGES
, and NLSPATH
.
The following exit values
are returned:
- The utility executed successfully and all requested changes
were made.
- >0
- An error occurred.
- /etc/passwd
- system password file
chgrp(1)
, chmod(1)
, chown(2)
, passwd(4)
, environ(5)
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