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.\" $FreeBSD$ 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.Op Fl h 49.Ar owner Ns Op Ar :group 50.Ar file ... 51.Nm chown 52.Oo 53.Fl R 54.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 55.Oc 56.Op Fl f 57.Op Fl h 58.Ar :group 59.Ar 60.Sh DESCRIPTION 61.Nm Chown 62sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 63.Pp 64The options are as follows: 65.Bl -tag -width Ds 66.It Fl H 67If the 68.Fl R 69option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. 70(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed). 71.It Fl L 72If the 73.Fl R 74option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 75.It Fl P 76If the 77.Fl R 78option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 79.It Fl R 80Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 81in the files instead of just the files themselves. 82.It Fl f 83Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 84the exit status to reflect such failures. 85.It Fl h 86If the file is a symbolic link, change the user ID and/or the group ID 87of the link itself rather than the file that the link points to. 88.El 89.Pp 90The 91.Fl H , 92.Fl L 93and 94.Fl P 95options are ignored unless the 96.Fl R 97option is specified. 98In addition, these options override each other and the 99command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 100.Pp 101The 102.Ar owner 103and 104.Ar group 105operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. 106If the 107.Ar group 108operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 109.Pp 110The 111.Ar owner 112may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. 113If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a 114user name. 115The 116.Ar group 117may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. 118If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a 119group name. 120.Pp 121The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 122obvious security reasons. 123.Pp 124The 125.Nm 126utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. 127.Sh COMPATIBILITY 128Previous versions of the 129.Nm 130utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 131This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 132group names may contain the dot character. 133.Pp 134On previous versions of this system, symbolic links did not have 135owners. 136.Sh SEE ALSO 137.Xr chgrp 1 , 138.Xr find 1 , 139.Xr chown 2 , 140.Xr fts 3 , 141.Xr symlink 7 142.Sh STANDARDS 143The 144.Nm 145command is expected to be 146.St -p1003.2 147compliant. 148.Sh HISTORY 149A 150.Nm 151command appeared in 152.At v1 . 153