CHOWN(2)                COMMAND REFERENCE                CHOWN(2)



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

SYNOPSIS
     chown(path, owner, group)
     char *path;
     int owner, group;

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

DESCRIPTION
     The file which is named by path or referenced by fd has its
     owner and group changed as specified.

     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 super-user.

     Fchown is particularly useful when used in conjunction with
     the file locking primitives (see flock(2)).

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

     Normally only the super-user may execute this call, because
     if users were able to give files away, they could defeat the
     file-space accounting procedures.  The exception to this is
     when owner is -1 and group is in the current group access
     list of the calling process.  This lets any user change the
     group of a file they own as long as they're a member of that
     group.

DIAGNOSTICS
     Chown will fail and the file will be unchanged if:

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

     [ENAMETOOLONG] The argument pathname is too long.

     [ENOASCII]     The argument path contains a byte with the
                    high-order bit set.

     [ENOENT]       The named file does not exist.

     [EPERM]        The effective user ID is not the super-user
                    and this call would change the file's
                    ownership, or would change the file's group
                    to one of which the process is not a member.

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



Printed 5/12/88                                                 1

CHOWN(2)                COMMAND REFERENCE                CHOWN(2)



                    system.

     [EFAULT]       Path points outside the process's allocated
                    address space.

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

     [EIO]          An I/O error occurred while reading from or
                    writing to the file system.

     Fchown will fail if:

     [EBADF]        Fd does not refer to a valid descriptor.

     [EPERM]        The effective user ID is not the super-user
                    and this call would change the file's
                    ownership, or would change the file's group
                    to one of which the process is not a member.

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

     [EIO]          An I/O error occurred while reading from or
                    writing to the file system.

     [EINVAL]       Fd refers to a socket, not a file.

RETURN VALUE
     Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.
     Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and errno is set to
     indicate the error.

SEE ALSO
     chmod(2), flock(2), and getgroups(2).




















Printed 5/12/88                                                 2

%%index%%
na:264,100;
sy:364,1099;
de:1463,1179;
di:2642,856;3834,1031;
rv:4865,280;
se:5145,183;
%%index%%000000000121