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CHOWN(8) System Manager's Manual CHOWN(8) NAME chown -- change file owner and group SYNOPSIS chown [-fhvx] [-R [-H | -L | -P]] owner[:group] file ... chown [-fhvx] [-R [-H | -L | -P]] :group file ... DESCRIPTION The chown utility changes the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files. Symbolic links named by arguments are silently left unchanged un- less -h is used. The options are as follows: -H If the -R option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed and hence unaffected by the command. (Symbolic links encountered during traversal are not followed.) -L If the -R option is specified, all symbolic links are followed. -P If the -R option is specified, no symbolic links are followed. This is the default. -R Change the user ID and/or the group ID of the file hierarchies rooted in the files, instead of just the files themselves. Beware of unintentionally matching the ".." hard link to the parent direc- tory when using wildcards like ".*". -f Do not report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify the exit status to reflect such failures. -h If the file is a symbolic link, change the user ID and/or the group ID of the link itself. -v Cause chown to be verbose, showing files as the owner is modified. If the -v flag is specified more than once, chown will print the filename, followed by the old and new numeric user/group ID. -x File system mount points are not traversed. The -H, -L and -P options are ignored unless the -R option is specified. In addition, these options override each other and the command's actions are determined by the last one specified. The owner and group operands are both optional, however, one must be speci- fied. If the group operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character. The owner may be either a numeric user ID or a user name. If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a user name. The group may be either a numeric group ID or a group name. If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a group name. The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for obvious se- curity reasons. If chown receives a SIGINFO signal (see the status argument for stty(1)), then the current filename as well as the old and new file owner and group are displayed. EXIT STATUS The chown utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. COMPATIBILITY Previous versions of the chown utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name. This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and group names may contain the dot character. On previous versions of this system, symbolic links did not have owners. The -v and -x options are non-standard and their use in scripts is not rec- ommended. SEE ALSO chgrp(1), chmod(1), find(1), chown(2), fts(3), groups(7), symlink(7) STANDARDS The chown utility is expected to be IEEE Std 1003.2 ("POSIX.2") compliant. HISTORY A chown utility appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX. FreeBSD ports 15.1 April 19, 2026 CHOWN(8)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | COMPATIBILITY | SEE ALSO | STANDARDS | HISTORY
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