Changing File Ownership

About chown

  • chown changes file owner (user) and/or group ownership.

  • Root user:

  • Can change user and group ownership of any file.

  • Regular user:

    • Cannot change user ownership.
    • Can change group ownership only to groups they belong to.

Key Notes

  • Changing user ownership always requires root.

  • Changing group ownership:

    • Root → any group
    • Regular user → only own groups

Syntax

chown [OPTIONS] [OWNER] FILE
  • OWNER → new user who will own the file.
  • FILE → file or directory whose ownership is being changed.
  • OPTIONS → modify how chown works. Common options include:
Option Meaning
-R Recursive → apply ownership change to all files and subdirectories inside a directory.
-v Verbose → show what is being changed.
-c Report only changed files → only outputs if ownership was actually modified.
--dereference Affect the target of symbolic links (default behavior).
--no-dereference Affect the symlink itself, not its target.

Examples

chown newuser filename  # Change owner
chown :newgroup filename  # Change group
chown newuser:newgroup filename  # Change owner and group

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