chown(2)                                                 chown(2)



     NAME
          chown, fchown - change owner and group of a file

     SYNOPSIS
          #include <sys/types.h>

          int chown(path, owner, group)
          char *path;
          uid_t owner; gid_t group;

          int fchown(fd, owner, group)
          int fd, owner, group;

     DESCRIPTION
          The file that is named by path or referenced by fd has its
          owner and group changed as specified.  Only the superuser or
          the owner of the file may execute this call.

          chown clears the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits on the
          file to prevent accidental creation of set-user-ID and set-
          group-ID programs owned by the superuser.

          If chown is invoked successfully by users other than the su-
          peruser, the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of the file
          mode, 04000 and 02000 respectively, will be cleared.  This
          prevents ordinary users from effectively making themselves
          other users or members of a group to which they don't be-
          long.

          Only one of the owner and group IDs may be set by specifying
          the other as -1.

          If the compatibility flag COMPAT_BSDCHOWN is set, chown is
          restricted to processes with superuser privileges.  This
          compatibility flag also limits a process that has an effec-
          tive user ID equal to the user ID of the file, but otherwise
          without appropriate privileges, from changing the file's
          group ID to the effective group ID of the process only, or
          to its supplementary group IDs.

          For the POSIX environment, the COMPAT_BSDCHOWN flag is set
          to support these added restrictions.

     RETURN VALUE
          A value of 0 is returned if the operation was successful; A
          value of -1 is returned if an error occurs, and a more
          specific error code is placed in the global variable errno.

     ERRORS
          chown will fail and the file will be unchanged if one or
          more of the following are true:




     April, 1990                                                     1

     chown(2)                                                 chown(2)



          [EINVAL]      The argument path does not refer to a file.

          [ENOTDIR]     A component of the path prefix is not a direc-
                        tory.

          [ENOENT]      The argument pathname is too long.

          [ENOENT]      The named file does not exist.

          [EACCES]      Search permission is denied on a component of
                        the path prefix.

          [EPERM]       A pathname contains a character with the
                        high-order bit set.

          [ENAMETOOLONG]
                        A component of a pathname exceeded NAME_MAX
                        characters, or an entire pathname exceeded
                        PATH_MAX.

          [ELOOP]       Too many symbolic links were encountered in
                        translating a pathname.

          [EPERM]       The effective user ID does not match the owner
                        of the file and the effective user ID is not
                        the superuser.

          [EROFS]       The named file resides on a read-only file
                        system.

          [EFAULT]      The argument path points outside the allocated
                        address space of the process.

          [ELOOP]       Too many symbolic links were encountered in
                        translating the pathname.

          fchown will fail if one or both of the following are true:

          [EBADF]       The fd does not refer to a valid descriptor.

          [EINVAL]      The fd refers to a socket, not a file.

     SEE ALSO
          chown(1), chgrp(2), chmod(2).











     2                                                     April, 1990