NAME
chown, fchown, lchown - change ownership of a file
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int chown(const char *path, uid_t owner, gid_t group
int fchown(int fd, uid_t owner, gid_t group
int lchown(const char *path, uid_t owner, gid_t group
DESCRIPTION
The owner of the file specified by path or by fd is changed.
Only the super-user may change the owner of a file. The
owner of a file may change the group of the file to any
group of which that owner is a member. The super-user may
change the group arbitrarily.
If the owner or group is specified as -1, then that ID is
not changed.
When the owner or group of an executable file are changed by
a non-super-user, the S_ISUID and S_ISGID mode bits are
cleared. POSIX does not specify whether this also should
happen when root does the chown; the Linux behaviour depends
on the kernel version. In case of a non-group-executable
file (with clear S_IXGRP bit) the S_ISGID bit indicates man-
datory locking, and is not cleared by a chown.
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and
errno is set appropriately.
ERRORS
Depending on the file system, other errors can be returned.
The more general errors for chown are listed below:
EPERM The effective UID does not match the owner of the
file, and is not zero; or the owner or group were
specified incorrectly.
EROFS The named file resides on a read-only file system.
EFAULT path points outside your accessible address space.
ENAMETOOLONG
path is too long.
ENOENT The file does not exist.
ENOMEM Insufficient kernel memory was available.
ENOTDIR A component of the path prefix is not a directory.
EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the
path prefix.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolv-
ing path.
The general errors for fchown are listed below:
EBADF The descriptor is not valid.
ENOENT See above.
EPERM See above.
EROFS See above.
EIO A low-level I/O error occurred while modifying the
inode.
NOTES
In versions of Linux prior to 2.1.81 (and distinct from
2.1.46), chown did not follow symbolic links. Since Linux
2.1.81, chown does follow symbolic links, and there is a new
system call lchown that does not follow symbolic links.
Since Linux 2.1.86, this new call (that has the same seman-
tics as the old chown) has got the same syscall number, and
chown got the newly introduced number.
The prototype for fchown is only available if __USE_BSD is
defined.
CONFORMING TO
The chown call conforms to SVr4, SVID, POSIX, X/OPEN. The
4.4BSD version can only be used by the superuser (that is,
ordinary users cannot give away files). SVr4 documents EIN-
VAL, EINTR, ENOLINK and EMULTIHOP returns, but no ENOMEM.
POSIX.1 does not document ENOMEM or ELOOP error conditions.
The fchown call conforms to 4.4BSD and SVr4. SVr4 documents
additional EINVAL, EIO, EINTR, and ENOLINK error conditions.
RESTRICTIONS
The chown() semantics are deliberately violated on NFS file
systems which have UID mapping enabled. Additionally, the
semantics of all system calls which access the file contents
are violated, because chown() may cause immediate access
revocation on already open files. Client side caching may
lead to a delay between the time where ownership have been
changed to allow access for a user and the time where the
file can actually be accessed by the user on other clients.
SEE ALSO
chmod(2), flock(2)