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28 .\" @(#)chown.2 8.4 (Berkeley) 4/19/94
38 .Nd change owner and group of a file
44 .Fn chown "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
46 .Fn fchown "int fd" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
48 .Fn lchown "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group"
50 .Fn fchownat "int fd" "const char *path" "uid_t owner" "gid_t group" "int flag"
52 The owner ID and group ID of the file
57 is changed as specified by the arguments
61 The owner of a file may change the
64 he or she is a member,
67 capability is restricted to the super-user.
72 clears the set-user-id and set-group-id bits
74 to prevent accidental or mischievous creation of
75 set-user-id and set-group-id programs if not executed
80 follows symbolic links to operate on the target of the link
81 rather than the link itself.
86 is particularly useful when used in conjunction
87 with the file locking primitives (see
92 system call is similar to
94 but does not follow symbolic links.
98 system call is equivalent to the
102 except in the case where
104 specifies a relative path.
105 In this case the file to be changed is determined relative to the directory
106 associated with the file descriptor
108 instead of the current working directory.
112 are constructed by a bitwise-inclusive OR of flags from the following
115 .Bl -tag -width indent
116 .It Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
119 names a symbolic link, ownership of the symbolic link is changed.
120 .It Dv AT_RESOLVE_BENEATH
121 Only walk paths below the directory specified by the
124 See the description of the
125 .Dv O_RESOLVE_BENEATH
132 argument is an empty string, operate on the file or directory
133 referenced by the descriptor
139 operate on the current working directory.
144 is passed the special value
148 parameter, the current working directory is used and the behavior is identical
153 respectively, depending on whether or not the
154 .Dv AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
159 One of the owner or group id's
160 may be left unchanged by specifying it as -1.
168 will fail and the file will be unchanged if:
171 A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
172 .It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
173 A component of a pathname exceeded 255 characters,
174 or an entire path name exceeded 1023 characters.
176 The named file does not exist.
178 Search permission is denied for a component of the path prefix.
180 Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
182 The operation would change the ownership, but the effective user ID is not the
185 The named file has its immutable or append-only flag set, see the
187 manual page for more information.
189 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
194 points outside the process's allocated address space.
196 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
198 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
203 system call will fail if:
209 does not refer to a valid descriptor.
214 refers to a socket, not a file.
216 The effective user ID is not the super-user.
218 The named file resides on a read-only file system.
220 An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
222 Corrupted data was detected while reading from the file system.
225 In addition to the errors specified for
231 system call may fail if:
236 argument does not specify an absolute path and the
240 nor a valid file descriptor open for searching.
244 argument is not valid.
248 argument is not an absolute path and
252 nor a file descriptor associated with a directory.
253 .It Bq Er ENOTCAPABLE
256 or contained a ".." component leading to a
257 directory outside of the directory hierarchy specified by
259 and the process is in capability mode or the
260 .Dv AT_RESOLVE_BENEATH
272 system call is expected to conform to
276 system call follows The Open Group Extended API Set 2 specification.
284 system call appeared in
289 system call was changed to follow symbolic links in
293 system call was added in
295 to compensate for the loss of functionality.
299 system call appeared in