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DESCRIPTION

The options are as follows:

-H

If the -R option is specified, symbolic links on the command line are followed. (Symbolic links encountered in the tree traversal are not followed.)

-L

If the -R option is specified, all symbolic links are followed.

-P

If the -R option is specified, no symbolic links are followed.

-R

Change the user ID and/or the group ID for the file hierarchies rooted in the files instead of just the files themselves.

-f

Do not report any failure to change file owner or group, nor modify the exit status to reflect such failures.

-h

If file is a symbolic link, the owner and/or group of the link is changed.

-v

Cause chown to be verbose, showing files as they are processed.

The -H, -L and -P options are ignored unless the -R option is specified. In addition, these options override each other and the command's actions are determined by the last one specified. The default is as if the -P option had been specified.

The -L option cannot be used together with the -h option.

The owner and group operands are both optional, however, one must be specified; alternatively, both the owner and group may be specified using a reference rfile specified using the --reference argument. If the group operand is specified, it must be preceded by a colon (``:'') character.

The owner may be either a user name or a numeric user ID. The group may be either a group name or a numeric group ID. Since it is valid to have a user or group name that is numeric (and does not have the numeric ID that matches its name) the name lookup is always done first. Preceding an ID with a ``#'' character will force it to be taken as a number.

The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user for obvious security reasons.

Unless invoked by the super-user, chown 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.

The chown utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.