chown(1)							   User Commands							  chown(1)

NAME

       chown - change file ownership

SYNOPSIS

   /usr/bin/chown
       /usr/bin/chown [-fhR] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -s [-fhR] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -s -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown [-fhR] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -s [-fhR] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -s -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

   ksh93
       chown [-cflhmnvHLPRX] [-r file] owner[:group] file...

DESCRIPTION

   /usr/bin/chown and /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The  chown utility sets the user ID of the file named by each file to the user ID specified by owner, and, optionally, sets the group ID to
       that specified by group.

       If chown is invoked by other than the super-user, the set-user-ID bit is cleared.

       Only the owner of a file (or the super-user) can change the owner of that file.

       The operating system has a configuration option {_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED}, to restrict ownership changes. When this option is in effect the
       owner  of the file is prevented from changing the owner ID of the file. Only the super-user can arbitrarily change owner IDs whether or not
       this option is in effect. To set this configuration option, include the following line in /etc/system:

	 set rstchown = 1

       To disable this option, include the following line in /etc/system:

	 set rstchown = 0

       {_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED} is enabled by default. See system(4) and fpathconf(2).

   ksh93
       The chown built-in in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin paths. It is invoked when chown is executed without a pathname  prefix
       and the pathname search finds a /bin/chown or /usr/bin/chown executable.

       chown  changes  the ownership of each file to owner. owner can be specified as either a user name or a numeric user id. The group ownership
       of each file can also be changed to group by appending :group to the user name.

OPTIONS

   /usr/bin/chown and /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -f    Force. Does not report errors.

       -h    If the file is a symbolic link, this option changes the owner of the symbolic link. Without this option, the owner of the file refer-
	     enced by the symbolic link is changed.

       -H    If  the  file specified on the command line is a symbolic link referencing a file of type directory, this option changes the owner of
	     the directory referenced by the symbolic link and all the files in the file hierarchy below it. If a  symbolic  link  is  encountered
	     when traversing a file hierarchy, the owner of the target file is changed, but no recursion takes place.

       -L    If  the  file is a symbolic link, this option changes the owner of the file referenced by the symbolic link. If the file specified on
	     the command line, or encountered during the traversal of the file hierarchy, is a symbolic link referencing a file of type directory,
	     then this option changes the owner of the directory referenced by the symbolic link and all files in the file hierarchy below it.

       -P    If  the  file  specified  on the command line or encountered during the traversal of a file hierarchy is a symbolic link, this option
	     changes the owner of the symbolic link. This option does not follow the symbolic link to any other part of the file hierarchy.

       -s    The owner and/or group arguments are Windows SID strings. This option requires a file system that supports storing SIDs, such as ZFS.

       Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H, -L, or -P is not considered an error. The last option  specified	determines
       the behavior of chown.

   /usr/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -R    Recursive.  chown	descends  through the directory, and any subdirectories, setting the specified ownership ID as it proceeds. When a
	     symbolic link is encountered, the owner of the target file is changed, unless the -h or -P option is specified. However, no recursion
	     takes place, unless the -H or -L option is specified.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -R    Recursive.  chown	descends  through the directory, and any subdirectories, setting the specified ownership ID as it proceeds. When a
	     symbolic link is encountered, the owner of the target file is changed, unless the -h or -P option is specified. Unless the -H, -L, or
	     -P option is specified, the -L option is used as the default mode.

   ksh93
       The following options are supported by the ksh93 built-in chown command:

       -c
       --changes

	   Describe only files whose ownership actually changes.

       -f
       --quiet | silent

	   Do not report files whose ownership fails to change.

       -l | h
       --symlink

	   Change the ownership of the symbolic links on systems that support this option.

       -m
       --map

	   Interpret the first operand as a file that contains a map of:

	     from_uid:from_gid	to_uid:to_gid

	   pairs.  Ownership of files matching the from part of any pair is changed to the corresponding to part of the pair. The process stops at
	   the first match for each file. Unmatched files are silently ignored.

       -n
       --show

	   Show actions but do not execute.

       -r
       --reference=file

	   Omit the explicit ownership operand and use the ownership of the file instead.

       -v
       --verbose

	   Describe the changed permissions of all files.

       -H
       --metaphysical

	   Follow symbolic links for command arguments. Otherwise do not follow symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -L
       --logical | follow

	   Follow symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -P
       --physical | nofollow

	   Do not follow symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -R
       --recursive

	   Recursively change ownership of directories and their contents.

       -X
       --test

	   Canonicalize output for testing.

OPERANDS

       The following operands are supported:

       owner[:group]	A user ID and optional group ID to be assigned to file. The owner portion of this operand must be a  user  name  from  the
			user  database or a numeric user ID. Either specifies a user ID to be given to each file named by file. If a numeric owner
			exists in the user database as a user name, the user ID number associated with that user name is used as the user ID. Sim-
			ilarly,  if  the  group  portion  of this operand is present, it must be a group name from the group database or a numeric
			group ID. Either specifies a group ID to be given to each file. If a numeric group operand exists in the group database as
			a group name, the group ID number associated with that group name is used as the group ID.

       file		A path name of a file whose user ID is to be modified.

USAGE

       See largefile(5) for the description of the behavior of chown when encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

EXAMPLES

       Example 1 Changing Ownership of All Files in the Hierarchy

       The following command changes ownership of all files in the hierarchy, including symbolic links, but not the targets of the links:

	 example% chown -R -h owner[:group] file...

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

       See  environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of chown: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES-
       SAGES, and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned:

       0     The utility executed successfully and all requested changes were made.

       >0    An error occurred.

FILES

       /etc/passwd    System password file

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

   /usr/bin/chown
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |Enabled. See NOTES.	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |Committed 		   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Standard		     |See standards(5). 	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWxcu4			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |Enabled. See NOTES.	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |Committed 		   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Standard		     |See standards(5). 	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

   ksh93
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |See below.		   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

       The ksh93 built-in binding to /bin and /usr/bin is Volatile. The built-in interfaces are Uncommitted.

SEE ALSO

       chgrp(1), chmod(1),ksh93(1),  chown(2), fpathconf(2), passwd(4), system(4), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)

NOTES

       chown is CSI-enabled except for the owner and group names.

SunOS 5.11							    11 Jul 2008 							  chown(1)