1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 6.\" are met: 7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 8.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 11.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 12.\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software 13.\" must display the following acknowledgement: 14.\" This product includes software developed by the University of 15.\" California, Berkeley and its contributors. 16.\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.\" @(#)chown.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94 33.\" $Id$ 34.\" 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 chown 43.Oo 44.Fl R 45.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 46.Oc 47.Op Fl f 48.Ar owner Op Ar :group 49.Ar file ... 50.Nm chown 51.Oo 52.Fl R 53.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 54.Oc 55.Op Fl f 56.Ar :group 57.Ar file ... 58.Sh DESCRIPTION 59.Nm Chown 60sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 61.Pp 62The options are as follows: 63.Bl -tag -width Ds 64.It Fl H 65If the 66.Fl R 67option 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 70If the 71.Fl R 72option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 73.It Fl P 74If the 75.Fl R 76option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 77.It Fl R 78Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 79in the files instead of just the files themselves. 80.It Fl f 81Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 82the exit status to reflect such failures. 83.El 84.Pp 85Symbolic links don't have owners, so unless the 86.Fl H 87or 88.Fl L 89option is set, 90.Nm chown 91on a symbolic link always succeeds and has no effect. 92The 93.Fl H , 94.Fl L 95and 96.Fl P 97options are ignored unless the 98.Fl R 99option is specified. 100In addition, these options override each other and the 101command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 102.Pp 103The 104.Ar owner 105and 106.Ar group 107operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. 108If the 109.Ar group 110operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 111.Pp 112The 113.Ar owner 114may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. 115If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a 116user name. 117The 118.Ar group 119may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. 120If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a 121group name. 122.Pp 123The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 124obvious security reasons. 125.Pp 126The 127.Nm chown 128utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 129.Sh COMPATIBILITY 130Previous versions of the 131.Nm chown 132utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 133This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 134group names may contain the dot character. 135.Pp 136Previous versions of the 137.Nm chown 138utility changed the owner of symbolic links specified on the command 139line. 140In this system, symbolic links do not have owners. 141.Sh SEE ALSO 142.Xr chgrp 1 , 143.Xr find 1 , 144.Xr chown 2 , 145.Xr fts 3 , 146.Xr symlink 7 147.Sh STANDARDS 148The 149.Nm chown 150command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 151.Sh HISTORY 152A 153.Nm 154command appeared in 155.At v1 . 156