chown sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
The options are as follows:
-H
If the -R option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. (Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)
-L
If the -R option is specified, all symbolic links are followed.
-P
If the -R option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.
-R
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted in the files instead of just the files themselves.
-f
Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify the exit status to reflect such failures.
-h
If file is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed.
-v
Cause chown to be verbose, showing files as they are processed.
The
-H,
-L and
-P options are ignored unless the
-R option is specified. In addition, these options override each other and the command's actions are determined by the last one specified.
The
-L option cannot be used together with the
-h option.
The
owner and
group operands are both optional, however, one must be specified. If the
group operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
The
owner may be either a user name or a numeric user ID. The
group may be either a group name or a numeric group ID. Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and doesn't have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup is always done first. Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken as a number.
The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for obvious security reasons.
Unless invoked by the super-user,
chown clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits on a file to prevent accidental or mischievous creation of set-user-id and set-group-id programs.
The
chown utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.