chown man page on SunOS

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chown(1)			 User Commands			      chown(1)

NAME
       chown - change file ownership

SYNOPSIS
       chown [-fhR] owner[:group] file...

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

DESCRIPTION
       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 file system has a mountpoint option rstchown, to restrict ownership
       changes. When this option is in effect the owner of the	file  is  pre‐
       vented  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.

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.

       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.

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	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWcsu			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │CSI			     │Enabled. See NOTES.	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability	     │Standard			   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

   /usr/xpg4/bin/chown
       ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
       │      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     │	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Availability		     │SUNWxcu4			   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │CSI			     │Enabled. See NOTES.	   │
       ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
       │Interface Stability	     │Standard			   │
       └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘

SEE ALSO
       chgrp(1),   chmod(1),  chown(2),	 fpathconf(2),	passwd(4),  system(4),
       attributes(5), environ(5), largefile(5), standards(5)

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

SunOS 5.10			  1 Mar 2011			      chown(1)
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