Manual pages › BSD versions of commands (1B)
chown(1B)
change file owner
From the original Amiga UNIX 2.1 manual. Some things it mentions may not be in this release.
Also by this name: chown(1), General commands · chown-original(1), General commands · chown(2), System calls
NAME
chown - change file owner
SYNOPSIS
/usr/ucb/chown [-fhR] owner[.group] file ...
DESCRIPTION
chown changes the owner of the files to owner. The owner may be either a decimal user ID or a login name found in /etc/passwd file. The optional .group suffix may be used to change the group at the same time.
If chown is invoked by other than the super-user, the set-user-ID bit of the file mode, 04000, is cleared.
Only the super-user may change the owner of a file. Valid options to chown are:
-f Suppress error reporting
-h If the file is a symbolic link, change the owner of the symbolic link. Without this option, the owner of the file referenced by the symbolic link is changed.
-R Descend recursively through directories setting the ownership ID of all files in each directory entered.
FILES
/etc/group /etc/passwd
NOTES
In a Remote File Sharing environment, you may not have the permissions that the output of the ls -l command leads you to believe. For more information see the ``Mapping Remote Users'' section of the Remote File Sharing chapter of the System Administrator's Guide.
SEE ALSO
chgrp(1), chmod(1) chgrp(1), chmod(1) in the User's Refer- ence Manual. chown(2) in the Programmer's Reference Manual. passwd(4) in the System Administrator's Reference Manual.