Changing File Ownership

Name

chown - change file owner and group

Usage

The chown command allows you to change the ownership on any given file which will directly affect what users are able to read, write, and execute the target file.

chown [OPTION] [OWNER][:[GROUP]] [file-name]

Examples

Create a new file called chown-example.

touch chown-example

Check the current owner of the newly created file:

ls -l

Output:

The current user student in the student group is the owner of the file chown-example.

Change File Owner

Change the ownership of the file chown-example to the root user.

sudo chown root chown-example

Output:

The new owner of the file chown-example has been changed to the root user. However the chown-example file still falls within the student group.

Change File Group

To change the group of a file chown requires an additional argument:

sudo chown :root chown-example

Output:

You are able to add a : to the chown argument to change the group of a file.

sudo chown student:student chown-example

Recap:

• chown command
  • allows you to change user and group ownership of a file
  • chown [OPTIONS] file-name
  • chown new-user file-name: changes user ownership
  • chown :new-group file-name: changes group ownership
  • chown new-user:new-group file-name: changes both user and group ownership with one command