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28 .\" @(#)chown.2 8.4 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
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
133 is passed the special value
137 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical
142 respectively, depending on whether or not the
143 .Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
148 One of the owner or group id's
149 may be left unchanged by specifying it as -1.
157 will fail and the file will be unchanged if:
160 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
161 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
162 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
163 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
165 The named file does not exist.
167 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
169 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
171 The operation would change the ownership, but the effective user ID is not the
174 The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the
176 manual page for more information.
178 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
183 points outside the process's allocated address space.
185 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
187 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
192 system call will fail if:
198 does not refer to a valid descriptor.
203 refers to a socket, not a file.
205 The effective user ID is not the super-user.
207 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
209 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
211 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
214 In addition to the errors specified for
220 system call may fail if:
225 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
229 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
233 argument is not valid.
237 argument is not an absolute path and
241 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
242 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
245 or contained a ".." component leading to a
246 directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by
248 and the process is in capability mode.
249 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
256 does not have its tail fully contained under the topping directory,
270 system call is expected to conform to
274 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
282 system call appeared in
287 system call was changed to follow symbolic links in
291 system call was added in
293 to compensate for the loss of functionality.
297 system call appeared in