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

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

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

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

       -h, --no-dereference
	      affect  symbolic	links  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 '/'

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

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

       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".

       GNU  coreutils  online  help:  <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       Report chown translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2013 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 8.22		 February 2016			      CHOWN(1)