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.

     The chown command 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.

     The fchown command 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 superuser 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
     The chown command fails and the file remains unchanged if:

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

     [ENAMETOOLONG] The argument path name 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 superuser
                    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 4/6/89                                                  1

CHOWN(2)                COMMAND REFERENCE                CHOWN(2)



                    system.

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

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

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

     The fchown command fails if:

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

     [EPERM]        The effective user ID is not the superuser
                    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]       The fd argument 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 4/6/89                                                  2

%%index%%
na:264,100;
sy:364,1099;
de:1463,1202;
di:2665,872;3873,1118;
rv:4991,280;
se:5271,181;
%%index%%000000000121