.\"
.\" Sccsid @(#)chown.1b	1.4 (gritter) 1/29/05
.\" Parts taken from chown(1), Unix 7th edition:
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.TH CHOWN 1B "1/29/05" "Heirloom Toolchest" "BSD System Compatibility"
.SH NAME
chown \- (BSD) change file ownwer
.SH SYNOPSIS
\fB/usr/ucb/chown\fR [\fB\-fhHLPR\fR] \fIowner\fR[.\fIgroup\fR] \fIfile\fR ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B Chown
changes the owner of the
.I files
to
.IR owner ,
and, if
.I group
is present,
the group-ID of the
.I files
to
.IR group .
Both
.I owner
and
.I group
may be either a decimal
.SM UID
/
.SM GID
or a login / group name
found in the password file.
.PP
The following options are accepted:
.TP
.B \-f
Do not display errors.
.TP
.B \-h
When a symbolic link is encountered,
change the owner and group of the link itself,
rather than the file it refers to.
.TP
.B \-R
Recursively descend into each
.I file
operand.
Whether owner and group of a symbolic link are changed
depends on the
.B \-h
option,
but the link is not followed otherwise.
.PP
The following options have been introduced by POSIX.1-2001:
.TP
.B \-H
With the
.I \-R
option, if a symbolic link given on the command line
points to a directory,
follow that symbolic link
and change owner and group in the files below,
but do not handle any other symbolic links specially.
.TP
.B \-L
With the
.I \-R
option, whenever a symbolic link is encountered
that points to a directory,
follow the symbolic link
and change owner and group in the files below,
.TP
.B \-P
With the
.I \-R
option, do not follow any symbolic links,
but change owner and group of the links themselves.
.SH FILES
.B /etc/passwd
.br
.B /etc/group
.SH "SEE ALSO"
chown(2),
passwd(5),
group(5)
.SH NOTES
Permission to change owner and group is based
either on historical System V behaviour,
which is to allow the owner of the file or a privileged user
a change to any value;
or on historical
.SM BSD
behaviour,
which is to restrict changing the owner
to a privileged user
and changing the group to a group to which the file owner belongs.