Chown

Command used on Unix-like systems to change the owner of a file

For the surname, see Chown (surname).

chown

Example usage of `chown` command

Original author(s)| Ken Thompson,
Dennis Ritchie
Developer(s)| AT&T Bell Laboratories
Initial release| November 3, 1971; 52 years ago (1971-11-03)
Operating system| Unix and Unix-like, IBM i
Platform| Cross-platform
Type| Command

The command chown /ˈtʃoʊn/, an abbreviation of change owner, is used on Unix and Unix-like operating systems to change the owner of file system files and directories. Unprivileged (regular) users who wish to change the group membership of a file that they own may use chgrp.

The ownership of any file in the system may only be altered by a super-user. A user cannot give away ownership of a file, even when the user owns it. Similarly, only a member of a group can change a file's group ID to that group.[1]

The command is available as a separate package for Microsoft Windows as part of the UnxUtils collection of native Win32 ports of common GNU Unix-like utilities.[2] The chown command has also been ported to the IBM i operating system.[3]

## See also[edit]

* chgrp
* chmod
* takeown

## References[edit]

1. ^ BSD Man page for chown, March 31, 1994
2. ^ "Native Win32 ports of some GNU utilities". unxutils.sourceforge.net.
3. ^ IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (PDF). IBM. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-09-05.

## External links[edit]

The Wikibook Guide to Unix has a page on the topic of: Commands

* `chown` – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
* chown manual page
* The chown Command by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)

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