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, according to its first non-option argument,
       which is interpreted as follows.  If only  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 user name is followed by a colon or dot
       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 or dot 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 or dot and group are
       given, but the user name is omitted, only the  group  of
       the  files  is changed; in this case, chown performs the
       same function as chgrp.

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

       --dereference
              affect the referent of each symbolic link, rather
              than  the  symbolic  link  itself  (this  is  the
              default)

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect  each  symbolic link instead of any refer-
              enced 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 `/'

       -f, --silent, --quiet
              suppress most error messages

       --reference=RFILE
              use RFILE's owner and group rather than the spec-
              ifying OWNER:GROUP values

       -R, --recursive
              operate on files and directories recursively

       -v, --verbose
              output a diagnostic for every file processed

       The  following  options  modify  how a hierarchy is tra-
       versed 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.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software; see the source for copying condi-
       tions.  There is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABIL-
       ITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       The full documentation for chown is maintained as a Tex-
       info manual.  If the info and chown programs  are  prop-
       erly installed at your site, the command

              info chown

       should give you access to the complete manual.



chown 5.3.0              November 2004                 CHOWN(1)