1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2003 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. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 13.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 14.\" without specific prior written permission. 15.\" 16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 26.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 27.\" 28.\" from: @(#)chown.8 8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94 29.\" $NetBSD: chown.8,v 1.4 2011/01/13 22:28:36 haad Exp $ 30.\" 31.Dd December 9, 2005 32.Dt CHOWN 8 33.Os 34.Sh NAME 35.Nm chown 36.Nd change file owner and group 37.Sh SYNOPSIS 38.Nm 39.Oo 40.Fl R 41.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 42.Oc 43.Op Fl fhv 44.Ar owner Ns Op Ar :group 45.Ar file ... 46.Nm 47.Oo 48.Fl R 49.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P 50.Oc 51.Op Fl fhv 52.Ar :group 53.Ar file ... 54.Sh DESCRIPTION 55.Nm 56sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. 57.Pp 58The options are as follows: 59.Bl -tag -width Ds 60.It Fl H 61If the 62.Fl R 63option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. 64(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.) 65.It Fl L 66If the 67.Fl R 68option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. 69.It Fl P 70If the 71.Fl R 72option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. 73.It Fl R 74Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted 75in the files instead of just the files themselves. 76.It Fl f 77Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify 78the exit status to reflect such failures. 79.It Fl h 80If 81.Ar file 82is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed. 83.It Fl v 84Cause 85.Nm 86to be verbose, showing files as they are processed. 87.El 88.Pp 89The 90.Fl H , 91.Fl L 92and 93.Fl P 94options are ignored unless the 95.Fl R 96option is specified. 97In addition, these options override each other and the 98command's actions are determined by the last one specified. 99.Pp 100The 101.Fl L 102option cannot be used together with the 103.Fl h 104option. 105.Pp 106The 107.Ar owner 108and 109.Ar group 110operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. 111If the 112.Ar group 113operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. 114.Pp 115The 116.Ar owner 117may be either a user name or a numeric user ID. 118The 119.Ar group 120may be either a group name or a numeric group ID. 121Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and 122doesn't have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup 123is always done first. 124Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken 125as a number. 126.Pp 127The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for 128obvious security reasons. 129.Pp 130Unless invoked by the super-user, 131.Nm 132clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent 133accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id 134programs. 135.Pp 136The 137.Nm 138utility exits 0 on success, and \*[Gt]0 if an error occurs. 139.Sh COMPATIBILITY 140Previous versions of the 141.Nm 142utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. 143This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and 144group names may contain the dot character. 145.Sh SEE ALSO 146.Xr chflags 1 , 147.Xr chgrp 1 , 148.Xr find 1 , 149.Xr chown 2 , 150.Xr lchown 2 , 151.Xr fts 3 , 152.Xr symlink 7 153.Sh STANDARDS 154The 155.Nm 156command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant. 157.Pp 158The 159.Fl v 160option and the use of ``#'' to force a numeric lookup 161are extensions to 162.St -p1003.2 . 163