chown - Changes the owner of files or directories
chown [-fhR] owner [:group] file...
The chown command changes the owner of the specified files
or directories to the specified user name or user ID.
Interfaces documented on this reference page conform to
industry standards as follows:
chown: XCU5.0
Refer to the standards(5) reference page for more information
about industry standards and associated tags.
[Tru64 UNIX] Turns off error reporting. [Tru64 UNIX] If
file is a symbolic link, chown -h file changes the owner
of the symbolic link. The chown file format changes the
owner of the file referenced by the symbolic link.
Descends recursively through its directory arguments, setting
the specified owner.
The pathname of the file for which ownership is to be
changed. A user ID and optional group ID to be assigned
to file. The owner portion of this operand must be a user
name from the user database or a numeric user ID. Either
specifies a user ID to be given to each file named by one
of the file operands. If a numeric owner operand exists in
the user database as a user name, the user ID number associated
with that user name will be used as the user ID.
If the group portion of this operand is present, it
must be a group name from the group database or a
numeric group ID. Either specifies a group ID to be
given to each file. If a numeric group operand
exists in the group database as a group name, the
group ID number associated with that group name
will be used as the group ID.
[Tru64 UNIX] Only a user with superuser authority can use
the chown command.
The owner argument must be a valid user name or a valid
numerical user ID. The optional group argument must be a
valid group name or a valid numerical group ID.
The following exit values are returned: The chown command
executed successfully and all requested changes have been
made. An error occurred.
To change the owner of the file program.c, enter: chown
steffan program.c
The user access permissions for program.c now apply to
steffan. As the owner, steffan can use the chmod command
to permit or deny the other users access to program.c. See
the chmod command for details.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES [Toc] [Back] The following environment variables affect the execution
of chown: Provides a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. If LANG is unset
or null, the corresponding value from the default locale
is used. If any of the internationalization variables
contain an invalid setting, the utility behaves as if none
of the variables had been defined. If set to a non-empty
string value, overrides the values of all the other internationalization
variables. Determines the locale for the
interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters
(for example, single-byte as opposed to multibyte
characters in arguments). Determines the locale for the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
standard error. Determines the location of message catalogues
for the processing of LC_MESSAGES.
Contains user names and numeric user IDs.
Commands: chgrp(1), chmod(1), passwd(1)
Functions: chown(2), chmod(2)
Files: passwd(4)
Standards: standards(5)
chown(1)
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