xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man2/chown.2 (revision 0250c53ad267726f2438e3c6556199a0bbf588a2)
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8.Dd March 13, 2021
9.Dt CHOWN 2
10.Os
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm chown ,
13.Nm lchown ,
14.Nm fchown ,
15.Nm fchownat
16.Nd change owner and group of a file
17.Sh SYNOPSIS
18.In unistd.h
19.In sys/types.h
20.Ft int
21.Fo chown
22.Fa "const char *path"
23.Fa "uid_t owner"
24.Fa "gid_t group"
25.Fc
26.Ft int
27.Fo lchown
28.Fa "const char *path"
29.Fa "uid_t owner"
30.Fa "gid_t group"
31.Fc
32.Ft int
33.Fo fchown
34.Fa "int fildes"
35.Fa "uid_t owner"
36.Fa "gid_t group"
37.Fc
38.Ft int
39.Fo fchownat
40.Fa "int fildes"
41.Fa "const char *path"
42.Fa "uid_t owner"
43.Fa "gid_t group"
44.Fa "int flag"
45.Fc
46.Sh DESCRIPTION
47The
48.Fn chown
49and
50.Fn fchown
51functions set the owner
52.Sy ID
53and group
54.Sy ID
55of the file specified by
56.Fa path
57or referenced by the open file descriptor
58.Fa fildes
59to
60.Fa owner
61and
62.Fa group
63respectively.
64If
65.Fa owner
66or
67.Fa group
68is specified as -1,
69.Fn chown
70and
71.Fn fchown
72do not change the corresponding
73.Sy ID
74of the file.
75.Pp
76The
77.Fn lchown
78function sets the owner
79.Sy ID
80and group
81.Sy ID
82of the named file in the same manner as
83.Fn chown ,
84unless the named file is a symbolic link.
85In this case,
86.Fn lchown
87changes the ownership of the symbolic link file itself, while
88.Fn chown
89changes the ownership of the file or directory to which the symbolic link
90refers.
91.Pp
92The
93.Fn fchownat
94function sets the owner ID and group ID of the named  file
95in the same manner as
96.Fn chown .
97If, however, the
98.Fa path
99argument is relative
100.Po
101does not start with a
102.Qq /
103.Pc ,
104the path is resolved relative to the
105.Fa fildes
106argument rather than the current working directory.
107If the
108.Fa fildes
109argument has the special value
110.Dv AT_FDCWD ,
111the path resolution reverts back to current working directory relative.
112If the
113.Fa flag
114argument is set to
115.Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW ,
116the function behaves like
117.Fn lchown
118with respect to symbolic links.
119If the
120.Fa path
121argument is absolute, the
122.Fa fildes
123argument is ignored.
124If the
125.Fa path
126argument is a null pointer, the function behaves like
127.Fn fchown .
128.Pp
129If
130.Fn chown ,
131.Fn lchown ,
132.Fn fchown ,
133or
134.Fn fchownat
135is invoked by a process that does not have
136.Brq Dv PRIV_FILE_SETID
137asserted in its effective set, the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of the
138file mode,
139.Dv S_ISUID
140and
141.Dv S_ISGID
142respectively, are cleared
143.Po
144see
145.Xr chmod 2
146.Pc .
147Additional restrictions apply when changing the ownership to uid 0.
148.Pp
149The operating system defines several privileges to override restrictions on the
150.Fn chown
151family of functions.
152When the
153.Brq Dv PRIV_FILE_CHOWN
154privilege is asserted in the effective set of the current process, there are no
155restrictions except in the special circumstances of changing ownership to or
156from uid 0.
157When the
158.Brq Dv PRIV_FILE_CHOWN_SELF
159privilege is asserted, ownership changes are restricted to the files of which
160the ownership matches the effective user ID of the current process.
161If neither privilege is asserted in the effective set of the calling process,
162ownership changes are limited to changes of the group of the file to the list of
163supplementary group IDs and the effective group ID.
164.Pp
165The operating system provides a configuration option,
166.Brq Dv _POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED ,
167to control the default behavior of processes and the behavior of the NFS server.
168If
169.Brq Dv B_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED
170is not in effect, the privilege
171.Brq PRIV_FILE_CHOWN_SELF
172is asserted in the inheritable set of all processes unless overridden by
173.Xr policy.conf 5
174or
175.Xr user_attr 5 .
176To set this configuration option, include the following
177line in
178.Pa /etc/system :
179.Bd -literal -offset indent
180set rstchown = 1
181.Ed
182.Pp
183To disable this option, include the following line in
184.Pa /etc/system :
185.Bd -literal -offset indent
186set rstchown = 0
187.Ed
188.Pp
189See
190.Xr system 5
191and
192.Xr fpathconf 2 .
193.Pp
194Upon successful completion,
195.Fn chown ,
196.Fn fchown ,
197.Fn lchown ,
198and
199.Fn fchownat
200mark for update the
201.Fa st_ctime
202field of the file.
203.Sh RETURN VALUES
204Upon successful completion,
205.Sy 0
206is returned.
207Otherwise,
208.Sy -1
209is returned, the owner and group of the named file remain unchanged, and
210.Va errno
211is set to indicate the error.
212.Sh ERRORS
213All of these functions will fail if:
214.Bl -tag -width Er
215.It Er EPERM
216The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the
217.Brq Dv PRIV_FILE_CHOWN
218privilege is not asserted in the effective set of the calling process, or the
219.Brq Dv PRIV_FILE_CHOWN_SELF
220privilege is not asserted in the effective set of the calling process.
221.El
222.Pp
223The
224.Fn chown ,
225.Fn lchown ,
226and
227.Fn fchownat
228functions will fail if:
229.Bl -tag -width Er
230.It Er EACCES
231Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix of
232.Fa path .
233.It Er EFAULT
234The
235.Fa path
236argument points to an illegal address and for
237.Fn fchownat ,
238the file descriptor has the value
239.Dv AT_FDCWD .
240.It Er EINTR
241A signal was caught during the execution of the
242.Fn chown
243or
244.Fn lchown
245function.
246.It Er EINVAL
247The
248.Fa group
249or
250.Fa owner
251argument is out of range.
252.It Er EIO
253An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
254.It Er ELOOP
255Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating
256.Fa path .
257.It Er ENAMETOOLONG
258The length of the
259.Fa path
260argument exceeds
261.Brq Dv PATH_MAX ,
262or the length of a
263.Fa path
264component exceeds
265.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
266while
267.Brq Dv _POSIX_NO_TRUNC
268is in effect.
269.It Er ENOLINK
270The
271.Fa path
272argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer
273active.
274.It Er ENOENT
275Either a component of the path prefix or the file referred to by
276.Fa path
277does not exist or is a null pathname.
278.It Er ENOTDIR
279A component of the path prefix of
280.Fa path
281is not a directory, or the path supplied to
282.Fn fchownat
283is relative and the file descriptor provided does not refer to a valid
284directory.
285.It Er EROFS
286The named file resides on a read-only file system.
287.El
288.Pp
289The
290.Fn chown
291and
292.Fn fchownat
293functions will fail if:
294.Bl -tag -width Er
295.It Er EBADF
296For
297.Fn fchown ,
298the
299.Fa fildes
300argument is not an open file descriptor.
301.Pp
302For
303.Fn fchownat ,
304the
305.Fa path
306argument is not absolute and the fildes argument is neither
307.Dv AT_FDCWD ,
308nor an open file descriptor.
309.It Er EIO
310An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
311.It Er EINTR
312A signal was caught during execution of the function.
313.It Er ENOLINK
314The
315.Fa fildes
316argument points to a remote machine and the link to that machine is no longer
317active.
318.It Er EINVAL
319The
320.Fa group
321or
322.Fa owner
323argument is out of range.
324.It Er EROFS
325The named file referred to by
326.Fa fildes
327resides on a read-only file system.
328.El
329.Sh INTERFACE STABILITY
330.Sy Committed
331.Sh MT-LEVEL
332.Sy Async-Signal-Safe
333.Sh SEE ALSO
334.Xr chgrp 1 ,
335.Xr chown 1 ,
336.Xr chmod 2 ,
337.Xr fpathconf 2 ,
338.Xr system 5 ,
339.Xr attributes 7 ,
340.Xr standards 7
341