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

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

       -h, --no-dereference
	      affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file (useful only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink)

       --from=CURRENT_OWNER: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  omit-
	      ted, 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 `/'

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

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

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

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

       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 directory, 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

       Report chown bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org
       GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc.  License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://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)

       The  full  documentation  for chown is maintained as a Texinfo manual.  If the info and chown programs are properly installed at your site,
       the command

	      info coreutils 'chown invocation'

       should give you access to the complete manual.

GNU coreutils 7.1						     July 2010								  CHOWN(1)