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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 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 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  (useful
	      only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink)

       --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP
	      change  the  ownership  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 '/'

       --reference=RFILE
	      use  RFILE's  ownership rather than specifying values.  RFILE is
	      always dereferenced if a symbolic	link.

       -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 fi-
       nal one takes effect. -P	is the default.

       -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

       --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/coreutils/>
       Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  (C) 2025 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 9.6		 January 2025			      CHOWN(1)

Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=gchown&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+14.3.quarterly>

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