CHOWN(1)                         User Commands                        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  (C) 2014 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'



GNU coreutils 8.23                March 2015                          CHOWN(1)
