.\" DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE!  It was generated by help2man 1.35.
.TH CHOWN "1" "December 2006" "chown 6.7" "User Commands"
.SH NAME
chown \- change file owner and group
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B chown
[\fIOPTION\fR]... [\fIOWNER\fR][\fI:\fR[\fIGROUP\fR]] \fIFILE\fR...
.br
.B chown
[\fIOPTION\fR]... \fI--reference=RFILE FILE\fR...
.SH DESCRIPTION
This manual page
documents the GNU version of
.BR chown .
.B 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,
.B chown
performs the same function as
.BR chgrp .
If only a colon is given, or if the entire operand is empty, neither the
owner nor the group is changed.
.SH OPTIONS
.PP
Change the owner and/or group of each FILE to OWNER and/or GROUP.
With \fB\-\-reference\fR, change the owner and group of each FILE to those of RFILE.
.TP
\fB\-c\fR, \fB\-\-changes\fR
like verbose but report only when a change is made
.TP
\fB\-\-dereference\fR
affect the referent of each symbolic link (this is
the default), rather than the symbolic link itself
.TP
\fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-no\-dereference\fR
affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced
file (useful only on systems that can change the
ownership of a symlink)
.TP
\fB\-\-from\fR=\fICURRENT_OWNER\fR:CURRENT_GROUP
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.
.TP
\fB\-\-no\-preserve\-root\fR
do not treat `/' specially (the default)
.TP
\fB\-\-preserve\-root\fR
fail to operate recursively on `/'
.TP
\fB\-f\fR, \fB\-\-silent\fR, \fB\-\-quiet\fR
suppress most error messages
.TP
\fB\-\-reference\fR=\fIRFILE\fR
use RFILE's owner and group rather than
specifying OWNER:GROUP values
.TP
\fB\-R\fR, \fB\-\-recursive\fR
operate on files and directories recursively
.TP
\fB\-v\fR, \fB\-\-verbose\fR
output a diagnostic for every file processed
.PP
The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the \fB\-R\fR
option is also specified.  If more than one is specified, only the final
one takes effect.
.TP
\fB\-H\fR
if a command line argument is a symbolic link
to a directory, traverse it
.TP
\fB\-L\fR
traverse every symbolic link to a directory
encountered
.TP
\fB\-P\fR
do not traverse any symbolic links (default)
.TP
\fB\-\-help\fR
display this help and exit
.TP
\fB\-\-version\fR
output version information and exit
.PP
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.
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
chown root /u
Change the owner of /u to "root".
.TP
chown root:staff /u
Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".
.TP
chown \fB\-hR\fR root /u
Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".
.SH AUTHOR
Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Report bugs to <bug\-coreutils@gnu.org>.
.SH COPYRIGHT
Copyright \(co 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
.br
This is free software.  You may redistribute copies of it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
chown(2)
.PP
The full documentation for
.B chown
is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the
.B info
and
.B chown
programs are properly installed at your site, the command
.IP
.B info chown
.PP
should give you access to the complete manual.