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chown(1)

chmod(2)

passwd(5)

chown(2)

NAME

chown − change owner and group of a file

SYNTAX

int chown(name, owner, group)
char *name;
int owner, group;

DESCRIPTION

The chown system call changes the owner and group of the file name (null-terminated string) to owner and group.

RESTRICTIONS

Only processes with effective user ID equal to the file owner or the superuser may change the ownership of a file. 

If the chown call is invoked by anyone other than the superuser, the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of the file mode (04000 and 02000, respectively) will be cleared.  This prevents an ordinary user from effectively making themselves another user or a member of a group to which they do not belong. 

RETURN VALUE

If unsuccessful, returns a −1, and the global variable errno indicates the error code. 

DIAGNOSTICS

The chown call will fail if:

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

[EFAULT] The specified name points outside the process’s allocated address space. 

[ENFILE] There is insufficient system space to contain the inode. 

[ENOENT] Either a named file or an element within a path does not exist. 

[ENOTDIR] A component of the path prefix is not a directory. 

[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. 

ASSEMBLER

(chown = 16.) 
sys chown; name; owner; group

SEE ALSO

chown(1), chmod(2), passwd(5)

Typewritten Software • bear@typewritten.org • Edmonds, WA 98026