HP-UX Reference (11i v1 05/09) - 1 User Commands A-M (vol 1)

c
chown(1) chown(1)
NAME
chown, chgrp - change file owner or group
SYNOPSIS
chown [-h][-R
] owner[:group] file ...
chgrp [-h][-R
] group file ...
DESCRIPTION
The
chown command changes the owner ID of each specified file to owner and optionally the group ID of
each specified file to group.
The
chgrp command changes the group ID of each specified file to group.
owner can be either a decimal user ID or a login name found in the
/etc/passwd file.
group can be either a decimal group ID or a group name found in the
/etc/group file.
In order to change the owner or group, you must own the file and have the CHOWN privilege (see
setprivgrp(1M)). If either command is invoked on a regular file by other than the superuser, the set-user-
ID and set-group-ID bits of the file mode (04000 and 02000 respectively) are cleared. Note that a given
user’s or group’s ability to use this command can be restricted by
setprivgrp (see setprivgrp(1M)).
Access Control Lists −− HFS File Systems Only
Users can permit or deny specific individuals and groups to access a file by setting optional ACL entries in
the file’s access control list (see acl(5)). When using
chown in conjunction with HFS ACLs, if the new
owner and/or group of a file does not have an optional ACL entry corresponding to user
.% and/or %.group
in the file’s access control list, the file’s access permission bits remain unchanged. However, if the new
owner and/or group is already designated by an optional ACL entry of user
.% and/or %.group in the file’s
ACL,
chown sets the corresponding file access permission bits (and the corresponding base ACL entries) to
the permissions contained in that entry.
Access Control Lists −− JFS File Systems Only
Users can permit or deny specific individuals and groups to access a file by setting optional ACL entries in
the file’s access control list (see aclv(5)). When using chown in conjunction with JFS ACLs, if the new
owner and/or group of a file have optional ACL entries corresponding to
user:uid:perm and/or
group:gid:perm in the file’s access control list, those entries remain in the ACL but no longer have any
effect, being superseded by the file’s user::perm and/or
group::perm entries.
Options
chown and chgrp recognize the following options:
-h Change the owner or group of a symbolic link.
By default, the owner or group of the target file that a symbolic link points to is changed. With
-h, the target file that the symbolic link points to is not affected. If the target file is a directory,
and you specify -h and -R, recursion does not take place.
-R Recursively change the owner or group. For each file operand that names a directory, the owner
or group of the directory and all files and subdirectories in the file hierarchy below it are
changed.
EXTERNAL INFLUENCES
Environment Variables
LC_MESSAGES determines the language in which messages are displayed.
If LC_MESSAGES is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is
used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty
string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG.
If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, chown behaves as if all internationaliza-
tion variables are set to "C". See environ(5).
International Code Set Support
Single- and multi-byte character code sets are supported.
HP-UX 11i Version 1: September 2005 − 1 − Hewlett-Packard Company Section 1−−87