CHOWN(1)			 User Commands			      CHOWN(1)

NAME
       chown - change file owner and group

SYNOPSIS
       chown [OPTION]... [OWNER][:[GROUP]] FILE...
       chown [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page documents the GNU version of chown.  chown changes the
       user and/or group ownership of each given file.	If only an owner (a
       user name or numeric user ID) is given, that user is made the owner of
       each given file, and the files' group is not changed.  If the owner is
       followed by a colon and a group name (or numeric group ID), with no
       spaces between them, the group ownership of the files is changed as
       well.  If a colon but no group name follows the user name, that user is
       made the owner of the files and the group of the files is changed to
       that user's login group.	 If the colon and group are given, but the
       owner is omitted, only the group of the files is changed; in this case,
       chown performs the same function as chgrp.  If only a colon is given,
       or if the entire operand is empty, neither the owner nor the group is
       changed.

OPTIONS
       Change the owner and/or group of each FILE to OWNER and/or GROUP.  With
       --reference, change the owner and group of each FILE to those of RFILE.

       -c, --changes
	      like verbose but report only when a change is made

       -f, --silent, --quiet
	      suppress most error messages

       -v, --verbose
	      output a diagnostic for every file processed

       --dereference
	      affect the referent of each symbolic link (this is the default),
	      rather than the symbolic link itself

       -h, --no-dereference
	      affect symbolic links instead of any referenced file (useful
	      only on systems that can change the ownership of a symlink)

       --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP
	      change the ownership of each file only if its current owner
	      and/or group match those specified here. Either may be omitted,
	      in which case a match is not required for the omitted attribute

       --no-preserve-root
	      do not treat '/' specially (the default)

       --preserve-root
	      fail to operate recursively on '/'

       --reference=RFILE
	      use RFILE's ownership rather than specifying values.  RFILE is
	      always dereferenced if a symbolic link.

       -R, --recursive
	      operate on files and directories recursively

       The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the -R
       option is also specified.  If more than one is specified, only the
       final one takes effect. -P is the default.

       -H     if a command line argument is a symbolic link to a directory,
	      traverse it

       -L     traverse every symbolic link to a directory encountered

       -P     do not traverse any symbolic links

       --help display this help and exit

       --version
	      output version information and exit

       Owner is unchanged if missing.  Group is unchanged if missing, but
       changed to login group if implied by a ':' following a symbolic OWNER.
       OWNER and GROUP may be numeric as well as symbolic.

EXAMPLES
       chown root /u
	      Change the owner of /u to "root".

       chown root:staff /u
	      Likewise, but also change its group to "staff".

       chown -hR root /u
	      Change the owner of /u and subfiles to "root".

AUTHOR
       Written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

REPORTING BUGS
       Report bugs to: bug-coreutils@gnu.org
       GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
       General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
       Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.	License GPLv3+: GNU
       GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
       This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
       There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

SEE ALSO
       chown(2)

       Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chown>
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chown invocation'

GNU coreutils 9.8		September 2025			      CHOWN(1)