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.\"     from: @(#)chown.8	8.3 (Berkeley) 3/31/94
.\"	$NetBSD: chown.8,v 1.14 2002/02/08 01:38:47 ross Exp $
.\"
.Dd March 31, 1994
.Dt CHOWN 8
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm chown
.Nd change file owner and group
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Oo
.Fl R
.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
.Oc
.Op Fl fh
.Ar owner Ns Op Ar :group
.Ar file ...
.Nm ""
.Oo
.Fl R
.Op Fl H | Fl L | Fl P
.Oc
.Op Fl fh
.Ar :group
.Ar file ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
sets the user ID and/or the group ID of the specified files.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl H
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed.
(Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)
.It Fl L
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, all symbolic links are followed.
.It Fl P
If the
.Fl R
option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.
.It Fl R
Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted
in the files instead of just the files themselves.
.It Fl f
Don't report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify
the exit status to reflect such failures.
.It Fl h
If
.Ar file
is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fl H ,
.Fl L
and
.Fl P
options are ignored unless the
.Fl R
option is specified.
In addition, these options override each other and the
command's actions are determined by the last one specified.
.Pp
The
.Fl L
option cannot be used together with the
.Fl h
option.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
and
.Ar group
operands are both optional, however, one must be specified.
If the
.Ar group
operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.
.Pp
The
.Ar owner
may be either a numeric user ID or a user name.
If a user name is also a numeric user ID, the operand is used as a
user name.
The
.Ar group
may be either a numeric group ID or a group name.
If a group name is also a numeric group ID, the operand is used as a
group name.
.Pp
The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for
obvious security reasons.
.Pp
Unless invoked by the super-user,
.Nm
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.
.Pp
The
.Nm
utility exits 0 on success, and \*[Gt]0 if an error occurs.
.Sh COMPATIBILITY
Previous versions of the
.Nm
utility used the dot (``.'') character to distinguish the group name.
This has been changed to be a colon (``:'') character so that user and
group names may contain the dot character.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr chgrp 1 ,
.Xr find 1 ,
.Xr chown 2 ,
.Xr lchown 2 ,
.Xr fts 3 ,
.Xr symlink 7
.Sh STANDARDS
The
.Nm
command is expected to be POSIX 1003.2 compliant.