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28 .\" @(#)chown.2 8.4 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
31 .Dd September 23, 2020
39 .Nd change owner and group of a file
45 .Fn chown "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
47 .Fn fchown "int fd" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
49 .Fn lchown "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
51 .Fn fchownat "int fd" "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group" "int flag"
53 The owner ID and group ID of the file
58 is changed as specified by the arguments
62 The owner of a file may change the
65 he or she is a member,
68 capability is restricted to the super-user.
73 clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits
75 to prevent accidental or mischievous creation of
76 set-user-id and set-group-id programs if not executed
81 follows symbolic links to operate on the target of the link
82 rather than the link itself.
87 is particularly useful when used in conjunction
88 with the file locking primitives (see
93 system call is similar to
95 but does not follow symbolic links.
99 system call is equivalent to the
103 except in the case where
105 specifies a relative path.
106 In this case the file to be changed is determined relative to the directory
107 associated with the file descriptor
109 instead of the current working directory.
113 are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following
116 .Bl -tag -width indent
117 .It Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
120 names a symbolic link, ownership of the symbolic link is changed.
122 Only allow to change ownership of a file which is beneath of
123 the topping directory.
124 See the description of the
129 .It Dv AT_RESOLVE_BENEATH
130 Only walks paths below the topping directory.
131 See the description of the
132 .Dv O_RESOLVE_BENEATH
140 is passed the special value
144 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical
149 respectively, depending on whether or not the
150 .Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
155 One of the owner or group id's
156 may be left unchanged by specifying it as -1.
164 will fail and the file will be unchanged if:
167 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
168 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
169 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
170 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
172 The named file does not exist.
174 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
176 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
178 The operation would change the ownership, but the effective user ID is not the
181 The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the
183 manual page for more information.
185 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
190 points outside the process's allocated address space.
192 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
194 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
199 system call will fail if:
205 does not refer to a valid descriptor.
210 refers to a socket, not a file.
212 The effective user ID is not the super-user.
214 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
216 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
218 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
221 In addition to the errors specified for
227 system call may fail if:
232 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
236 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
240 argument is not valid.
244 argument is not an absolute path and
248 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
249 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
252 or contained a ".." component leading to a
253 directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by
255 and the process is in capability mode.
256 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
263 does not have its tail fully contained under the topping directory,
277 system call is expected to conform to
281 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
289 system call appeared in
294 system call was changed to follow symbolic links in
298 system call was added in
300 to compensate for the loss of functionality.
304 system call appeared in