SYNOPSIS

       chown [-hHLPR] owner[:group] file ...

       chgrp [-hHLPR] group file ...

DESCRIPTION

       Chown  changes  the  owner  of  the  files  to  owner, and, if group is
       present, the group-ID of the files to group.  Both owner and group  may
       be  either  a  decimal  UID  / GID or a login / group name found in the
       password file.

       Chgrp changes the group-ID of the files to group.   The  group  may  be
       either a decimal GID or a group name found in the group-ID file.

       Both chown and chgrp accept the following options:

       -h     When  a symbolic link is encountered, change the owner and group
              of the link itself, rather than the file it refers to.

       -R     Recursively descend into each file operand.  Whether  owner  and
              group  of  a symbolic link are changed depends on the -h option,
              but the link is not followed otherwise.

       The following options have been introduced by POSIX.1-2001:

       -H     With the -R option, if a symbolic link given on the command line
              points  to  a  directory,  follow  that symbolic link and change
              owner and group in the files below, but do not handle any  other
              symbolic links specially.

       -L     With the -R option, whenever a symbolic link is encountered that
              points to a directory, follow the symbolic link and change owner
              and group in the files below,

       -P     With the -R option, do not follow any symbolic links, but change
              owner and group of the links themselves.

FILES

       /etc/passwd
       /etc/group

SEE ALSO

       chown(2), passwd(5), group(5)

NOTES

       Permission to change owner and group is based either on historical Sys-
       tem  V  behaviour,  which is to allow the owner of the file or a privi-
       leged user a change to any value; or on historical BSD behaviour, which
       is to restrict changing the owner to a privileged user and changing the
       group to a group to which the file owner belongs.

       The [:group] argument to chown has been introduced with POSIX.2 and  is