CHOWN(1L)                                               CHOWN(1L)


NAME
       chown - change the user and group ownership of files

SYNOPSIS
       chown  [-Rcfv]  [--recursive] [--changes] [--help] [--ver-
       sion] [--silent] [--quiet]  [--verbose]  [user][:.][group]
       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
       -c, --changes
              Verbosely describe only files whose ownership actu-
              ally changes.

       -f, --silent, --quiet
              Do not print error messages about files whose  own-
              ership cannot be changed.

       -v, --verbose
              Verbosely describe ownership changes.

       -R, --recursive
              Recursively  change  ownership  of  directories and
              their contents.

       --help Print a usage message on standard output  and  exit
              successfully.

       --version
              Print  version  information on standard output then
              exit successfully.










FSF                     GNU File Utilities                      1