chown man page on SmartOS

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CHOWN(1)							      CHOWN(1)

NAME
       chown - change file ownership

SYNOPSIS
   /usr/bin/chown
       /usr/bin/chown [-fhR] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -s [-fhR] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/bin/chown -s -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown [-fhR] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -s [-fhR] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] owner[:group] file...

       /usr/xpg4/bin/chown -s -R [-f] [-H | -L | -P] ownersid[:groupsid] file...

   ksh93
       chown [-cflhmnvHLPRX] [-r file] owner[:group] file...

DESCRIPTION
   /usr/bin/chown and /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The  chown  utility  sets the user ID of the file named by each file to
       the user ID specified by owner, and, optionally, sets the group	ID  to
       that specified by group.

       If  chown  is invoked by other than the super-user, the set-user-ID bit
       is cleared.

       Only the owner of a file (or the super-user) can change	the  owner  of
       that file.

       The     operating     system	has	a     configuration	option
       {_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED}, to restrict  ownership  changes.  When  this
       option  is  in  effect the owner of the file is prevented from changing
       the owner ID of the file. Only the super-user  can  arbitrarily	change
       owner IDs whether or not this option is in effect. To set this configu‐
       ration option, include the following line in /etc/system:

	 set rstchown = 1

       To disable this option, include the following line in /etc/system:

	 set rstchown = 0

       {_POSIX_CHOWN_RESTRICTED} is enabled  by	 default.  See	system(4)  and
       fpathconf(2).

   ksh93
       The  chown  built-in  in ksh93 is associated with the /bin and /usr/bin
       paths. It is invoked when chown is executed without a  pathname	prefix
       and  the	 pathname  search  finds  a  /bin/chown or /usr/bin/chown exe‐
       cutable.

       chown changes the ownership of each file to owner. owner can be	speci‐
       fied as either a user name or a numeric user id. The group ownership of
       each file can also be changed to group by appending :group to the  user
       name.

OPTIONS
   /usr/bin/chown and /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -f
	     Force. Does not report errors.

       -h
	     If	 the file is a symbolic link, this option changes the owner of
	     the symbolic link. Without this option, the  owner	 of  the  file
	     referenced by the symbolic link is changed.

       -H
	     If the file specified on the command line is a symbolic link ref‐
	     erencing a file of type directory, this option changes the	 owner
	     of	 the  directory	 referenced  by	 the symbolic link and all the
	     files in the file hierarchy below	it.  If	 a  symbolic  link  is
	     encountered  when	traversing  a file hierarchy, the owner of the
	     target file is changed, but no recursion takes place.

       -L
	     If the file is a symbolic link, this option changes the owner  of
	     the  file	referenced by the symbolic link. If the file specified
	     on the command line, or encountered during the traversal  of  the
	     file  hierarchy,  is  a  symbolic link referencing a file of type
	     directory, then this option changes the owner  of	the  directory
	     referenced by the symbolic link and all files in the file hierar‐
	     chy below it.

       -P
	     If the file specified on the command line or  encountered	during
	     the traversal of a file hierarchy is a symbolic link, this option
	     changes the owner of the symbolic link. This option does not fol‐
	     low the symbolic link to any other part of the file hierarchy.

       -s
	     The  owner	 and/or	 group arguments are Windows SID strings. This
	     option requires a file system that supports storing SIDs, such as
	     ZFS.

       Specifying  more	 than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H, -L, or
       -P is not considered an error. The last option specified determines the
       behavior of chown.

   /usr/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -R
	     Recursive.	 chown	descends through the directory, and any subdi‐
	     rectories, setting the specified ownership	 ID  as	 it  proceeds.
	     When a symbolic link is encountered, the owner of the target file
	     is changed, unless the -h or -P option is specified. However,  no
	     recursion takes place, unless the -H or -L option is specified.

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       The following options are supported:

       -R
	     Recursive.	 chown	descends through the directory, and any subdi‐
	     rectories, setting the specified ownership	 ID  as	 it  proceeds.
	     When a symbolic link is encountered, the owner of the target file
	     is changed, unless the -h or -P option is specified.  Unless  the
	     -H,  -L,  or -P option is specified, the -L option is used as the
	     default mode.

   ksh93
       The following options are supported by the ksh93	 built-in  chown  com‐
       mand:

       -c
       --changes

	   Describe only files whose ownership actually changes.

       -f
       --quiet | silent

	   Do not report files whose ownership fails to change.

       -l | h
       --symlink

	   Change  the ownership of the symbolic links on systems that support
	   this option.

       -m
       --map

	   Interpret the first operand as a file that contains a map of:

	     from_uid:from_gid	to_uid:to_gid

	   pairs. Ownership of files matching the from part  of	 any  pair  is
	   changed to the corresponding to part of the pair. The process stops
	   at the first match for each	file.  Unmatched  files	 are  silently
	   ignored.

       -n
       --show

	   Show actions but do not execute.

       -r
       --reference=file

	   Omit	 the  explicit	ownership operand and use the ownership of the
	   file instead.

       -v
       --verbose

	   Describe the changed permissions of all files.

       -H
       --metaphysical

	   Follow symbolic links for command arguments. Otherwise do not  fol‐
	   low symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -L
       --logical | follow

	   Follow symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -P
       --physical | nofollow

	   Do not follow symbolic links when traversing directories.

       -R
       --recursive

	   Recursively change ownership of directories and their contents.

       -X
       --test

	   Canonicalize output for testing.

OPERANDS
       The following operands are supported:

       owner[:group]
			A  user	 ID  and  optional  group ID to be assigned to
			file. The owner portion of this operand must be a user
			name  from  the	 user  database	 or a numeric user ID.
			Either specifies a user ID to be given	to  each  file
			named  by  file. If a numeric owner exists in the user
			database as a user name, the user ID number associated
			with that user name is used as the user ID. Similarly,
			if the group portion of this operand  is  present,  it
			must  be  a  group  name  from the group database or a
			numeric group ID. Either specifies a group  ID	to  be
			given  to each file. If a numeric group operand exists
			in the group database as a group name,	the  group  ID
			number	associated with that group name is used as the
			group ID.

       file
			A path name of a file whose user ID is to be modified.

USAGE
       See largefile(5) for the description of	the  behavior  of  chown  when
       encountering files greater than or equal to 2 Gbyte ( 2^31 bytes).

EXAMPLES
       Example 1 Changing Ownership of All Files in the Hierarchy

       The  following command changes ownership of all files in the hierarchy,
       including symbolic links, but not the targets of the links:

	 example% chown −R −h owner[:group] file...

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment  variables
       that  affect  the  execution  of chown: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES‐
       SAGES, and NLSPATH.

EXIT STATUS
       The following exit values are returned:

       0
	     The utility executed successfully and all requested changes  were
	     made.

       >0
	     An error occurred.

FILES
       /etc/passwd
		      System password file

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

   /usr/bin/chown
       ┌────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
       │  ATTRIBUTE TYPE    │	ATTRIBUTE VALUE	  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │CSI		    │ Enabled. See NOTES. │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability │ Committed		  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Standard	    │ See standards(5).	  │
       └────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       ┌────────────────────┬─────────────────────┐
       │  ATTRIBUTE TYPE    │	ATTRIBUTE VALUE	  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │CSI		    │ Enabled. See NOTES. │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability │ Committed		  │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┤
       │Standard	    │ See standards(5).	  │
       └────────────────────┴─────────────────────┘

   ksh93
       ┌────────────────────┬─────────────────┐
       │  ATTRIBUTE TYPE    │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
       ├────────────────────┼─────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability │ See below.      │
       └────────────────────┴─────────────────┘

       The  ksh93  built-in  binding  to  /bin	and /usr/bin is Volatile.  The
       built-in interfaces are Uncommitted.

SEE ALSO
       chgrp(1), chmod(1),ksh93(1),  chown(2), fpathconf(2),  passwd(4),  sys‐
       tem(4), attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)

NOTES
       chown is CSI-enabled except for the owner and group names.

				 Jul 11, 2008			      CHOWN(1)
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