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.   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  owner‐
       ship  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  omit‐
       ted,  only  the group of the files is changed; in this case, chown
       performs 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

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

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

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

       -h, --no-dereference
              affect  symbolic links instead of any referenced file (use‐
              ful only on systems that can change the ownership of a sym‐
              link)

       --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP
              change the owner and/or group of each file only if its cur‐
              rent 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 '/'

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

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

       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 direc‐
              tory, 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.

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
       GNU  coreutils  online  help:  <https://www.gnu.org/software/core‐
       utils/>
       Report    any   translation   bugs   to   <https://translationpro‐
       ject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.   License  GPLv3+:
       GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
       chown(2)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chown>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chown invocation'

GNU coreutils 8.32              April 2020                       CHOWN(1)