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.
     If only an owner (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 owner is followed by  a
     colon 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 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 and group are given, but the owner  is  omitted,  only
     the  group of the files is changed; in this case, chown per-
     forms the same function as chgrp.  If only a colon is given,
     or if the entire operand is empty, neither the owner nor the
     group is changed.

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 (this is  the
          default), rather than the symbolic link itself

     -h, --no-dereference
          affect each symbolic link  instead  of  any  referenced
          file (useful only on systems that can change the owner-
          ship of a symlink)

     --from=CURENTOWNER:CURENTGROUP
          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 `/'



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User Commands                                            CHOWN(1)



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

     --reference=RFILE
          use RFILE's owner  and  group  rather  than  specifying
          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  traversed
     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  miss-
     ing,  but changed to login group if implied by a `:' follow-
     ing a symbolic OWNER.  OWNER and GROUP  may  be  numeric  as
     well as symbolic.

EXAMPLES
     chown root /u
          Change the owner of /u to "root".

     chown root:staff /u
          Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".

     chown -hR root /u
          Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".

AUTHOR
     Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
     Report bugs to .





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User Commands                                            CHOWN(1)



COPYRIGHT
     Copyright O 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     This is free software.  You may redistribute  copies  of  it
     under   the   terms   of  the  GNU  General  Public  License
     .  There  is  NO  WAR-
     RANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
     chown(2)

     The full documentation for chown is maintained as a  Texinfo
     manual.   If  the  info  and  chown  programs  are  properly
     installed at your site, the command

          info chown

     should give you access to the complete manual.

ATRIBUTES
     See attributes(5) for descriptions of the  following  attri-
     butes:

     
       ATRIBUTE TYPE      ATRIBUTE VALUE  
    
     Availability         SUNWgnu-coreutils 
    
     Interface Stability  Uncommitted       
    

NOTES
     Source    for    GNU    coreutils    is     available     on
     http:/opensolaris.org.






















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