chown/chown.8

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  32 .\"     from: @(#)chown.8       8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94
  33 .\"     $NetBSD: chown.8,v 1.11 1998/10/05 21:37:38 kim Exp $
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  35 .Dd March 31, 1994
  36 .Dt CHOWN 8
  37 .Os BSD 4
  38 .Sh NAME
  39 .Nm chown
  40 .Nd change file owner and group
  41 .Sh SYNOPSIS
  42 .Nm
  43 .Oo
  44 .Fl R
  45 .Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
  46 .Oc
  47 .Op Fl fh
  48 .Ar owner Op Ar :group
  49 .Ar file ...
  50 .Nm ""
  51 .Oo
  52 .Fl R
  53 .Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
  54 .Oc
  55 .Op Fl fh
  56 .Ar :group
  57 .Ar file ...
  58 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  59 .Nm
  60 sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
  61 .Pp
  62 The options are as follows:
  63 .Bl -tag -width Ds
  64 .It Fl H
  65 If the
  66 .Fl R
  67 option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed.
  68 (Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)
  69 .It Fl L
  70 If the
  71 .Fl R
  72 option is specified, all symbolic links are followed.
  73 .It Fl P
  74 If the
  75 .Fl R
  76 option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.
  77 .It Fl R
  78 Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
  79 in the files instead of just the files themselves.
  80 .It Fl f
  81 Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
  82 the exit status to reflect such failures.
  83 .It Fl h
  84 If
  85 .Ar file
  86 is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed.
  87 .El
  88 .Pp
  89 The
  90 .Fl H ,
  91 .Fl L
  92 and
  93 .Fl P
  94 options are ignored unless the
  95 .Fl R
  96 option is specified.
  97 In addition, these options override each other and the
  98 command's actions are determined by the last one specified.
  99 .Pp
 100 The
 101 .Fl L
 102 option cannot be used together with the
 103 .Fl h
 104 option.
 105 .Pp
 106 The
 107 .Ar owner
 108 and
 109 .Ar group
 110 operands are both optional, however, one must be specified.
 111 If the
 112 .Ar group
 113 operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
 114 .Pp
 115 The
 116 .Ar owner
 117 may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
 118 If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
 119 user name.
 120 The
 121 .Ar group
 122 may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
 123 If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
 124 group name.
 125 .Pp
 126 The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for
 127 obvious security reasons.
 128 .Pp
 129 Unless invoked by the super-user,
 130 .Nm
 131 clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent
 132 accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id
 133 programs.
 134 .Pp
 135 The
 136 .Nm
 137 utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
 138 .Sh COMPATIBILITY
 139 Previous versions of the
 140 .Nm
 141 utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name.
 142 This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and
 143 group names may contain the dot character.
 144 .Sh SEE ALSO
 145 .Xr chgrp 1 ,
 146 .Xr find 1 ,
 147 .Xr chown 2 ,
 148 .Xr lchown 2 ,
 149 .Xr fts 3 ,
 150 .Xr symlink 7
 151 .Sh STANDARDS
 152 The
 153 .Nm
 154 command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.