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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.
121 .It Dv AT_RESOLVE_BENEATH
122 Only walk paths below the directory specified by the
125 See the description of the
126 .Dv O_RESOLVE_BENEATH
133 argument is an empty string, operate on the file or directory
134 referenced by the descriptor
140 operate on the current working directory.
145 is passed the special value
149 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical
154 respectively, depending on whether or not the
155 .Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
160 One of the owner or group id's
161 may be left unchanged by specifying it as -1.
169 will fail and the file will be unchanged if:
172 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
173 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
174 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
175 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
177 The named file does not exist.
179 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
181 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
183 The operation would change the ownership, but the effective user ID is not the
186 The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the
188 manual page for more information.
190 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
195 points outside the process's allocated address space.
197 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
199 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
204 system call will fail if:
210 does not refer to a valid descriptor.
215 refers to a socket, not a file.
217 The effective user ID is not the super-user.
219 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
221 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
223 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
226 In addition to the errors specified for
232 system call may fail if:
237 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
241 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
245 argument is not valid.
249 argument is not an absolute path and
253 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
254 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
257 or contained a ".." component leading to a
258 directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by
260 and the process is in capability mode or the
261 .Dv AT_RESOLVE_BENEATH
273 system call is expected to conform to
277 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
285 system call appeared in
290 system call was changed to follow symbolic links in
294 system call was added in
296 to compensate for the loss of functionality.
300 system call appeared in