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  users  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

       --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 (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 /

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

       --reference=RFILE
	      use  RFILEs  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 : 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".

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to .

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright  2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       This is free software.  You may redistribute copies  of	it  under  the
       terms	   of	    the      GNU      General	   Public      License
       .	There is NO WARRANTY,  to  the
       extent permitted by law.

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 chown

       should give you access to the complete manual.



chown 5.97			 January 2007			      CHOWN(1)