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 omitted, 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 speci‐
       fied, 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: 
       General help using GNU software: 
       Report chown translation bugs to 

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright   ©   2011   Free   Software	Foundation,   Inc.    License	GPLv3+:   GNU	GPL    version	  3    or    later
       .
       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 8.12.197-032bb				  September 2011						  CHOWN(1)