CHOWN(1)			User Commands			     CHOWN(1)



NAME
       chown - change file owner and group

SYNOPSIS
       chown [OPTION]... OWNER[:[GROUP]] FILE...
       chown [OPTION]... :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, according  to  its
       first non-option argument, which is interpreted as follows.  If only 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 user
       name is followed by a colon or dot 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 or dot 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 or dot  and
       group  are  given, but the user name is omitted, only the group of the
       files is changed; in this case, chown performs the  same	 function  as
       chgrp.

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, rather than the sym-
	      bolic link itself (this is the default)

       -h, --no-dereference
	      affect each symbolic link instead of any referenced file	(use-
	      ful 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  the  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 ':'.  OWNER and  GROUP  may  be
       numeric as well as symbolic.

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to .

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This  is	 free software; see the source for copying conditions.	There
       is NO warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICU-
       LAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO
       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

       should give you access to the complete manual.



chown (coreutils) 5.2.1		 August 2006			     CHOWN(1)

UNIX/Linux commands referenced on this page:

1. file
2. which
3. as
4. login
5. link
6. more
7. links
8. display
9. free
10. info
11. at