CHOWN: Change File Owner and Group

1st chunk of `chown.man`

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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 owner and/or group 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

Title: CHOWN: Change File Owner and Group

Summary

This document describes the GNU version of the `chown` command, which changes the user and/or group ownership of files. It details the syntax for specifying owners and groups, including options to modify ownership based on current settings or by referencing another file, and options to control verbosity and handle symbolic links.