<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2 Final//EN"> <html> <head> <meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org"> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content= "text/html; charset=utf-8"> <title>chown - Change file ownership</title> <LINK rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../rzahg/ic.css"> </HEAD> <body bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <!-- Java sync-link --> <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="Javascript" SRC="../rzahg/synch.js" TYPE="text/javascript"></SCRIPT> <h2>chown - Change file ownership</h2> <strong>Synopsis</strong> <p><strong>chown [-R [ -H | -L | -P ]] [ -h ]</strong> <em> owner</em>[<em>:group</em>] <em>file ...</em></p> <p><strong>Description</strong></p> <p>You can use <strong>chown</strong> to set the owner of <em> file</em> to the user identifier or profile specified by <em> owner</em>. Optionally, <strong>chown</strong> can also set the group of the <em>file</em> to the group identifier or profile specified by <em>group</em>.</p> <p>To change the owner of a file, you must have one of the following authorities:</p> <ul> <li>The current user has *ALLOBJ special authority.</li> <li>The current user is the owner of the file or directory.</li> </ul> <p>To change the group of a file, you must have one of the following authorities:</p> <ul> <li>The current user has *ALLOBJ special authority.</li> <li>The current user is the owner of <em>file</em> and either one of the following: <ul> <li>The primary group of the job is <em>group</em>.</li> <li>One of the supplemental groups of the job is <em> group</em>.</li> </ul> </li> </ul> <p>In addition, the current user must have *USE authority to the new user profile or group profile.</p> <p>By default, <strong>chown</strong> follows symbolic links and changes the owner and group of the file pointed to by the symbolic link.</p> <p><img src="delta.gif" alt="Start of change"> The group of a file cannot be the same as the owner of the file. <img src="deltaend.gif" alt="End of change"></p> <p><strong>Options</strong></p> <dl> <dt><strong>-H</strong></dt> <dd>If the <strong>-R</strong> option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.</dd> <dt><strong>-L</strong></dt> <dd>If the <strong>-R</strong> option is specified, both symbolic links on the command line and symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are followed.</dd> <dt><strong>-P</strong></dt> <dd>If the <strong>-R</strong> option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.</dd> <dt><strong>-R</strong></dt> <dd>If <em>file</em> designates a directory, <strong>chown</strong> recursively changes the owner and group of each file in the entire subtree connected at that point.</dd> <dt><strong>-h</strong></dt> <dd>Change the owner and group of a symbolic link instead of the file pointed to by the symbolic link.</dd> </dl> <p><strong>Operands</strong></p> <p>The <em>owner</em> operand specifies either a user identifer number or a user profile name. The <em>group</em> operand specifies either a group identifier number or a group profile name. The <em> file</em> operand specifies a path name to an object.</p> <p><strong>Exit Status</strong></p> <ul> <li>0 when successful and all requested changes were made.</li> <li>>0 when an error occurred.</li> </ul> <p><strong>Related information</strong></p> <ul> <li><a href="chgrp.htm">chgrp - Change file group permission</a></li> <li><a href="chmod.htm">chmod - Change file modes (permissions)</a></li> </ul> <strong>Examples</strong> <ol> <li>Change the owner to user profile "sam" for the file "personal.file". <pre> chown sam personal.file </pre> </li> <li>Recursively change the owner to user profile "larry" for the sub-directory "moe.dir" and all files and sub-directories below this directory. <pre> chown -R larry moe.dir </pre> </li> <li>Change the owner to user identifier "500" for the file "your.file". <pre> chown 500 your.file </pre> </li> <li>Change the owner to user profile "sam" and the group to group profile "abbey" for the file "memo.txt". <pre> chown sam:abbey memo.txt </pre> </li> </ol> <!-- end ibmbody========================================================= --> </body> </html>