chown(2) — System Calls
OSF
NAME
chown, fchown − Changes the owner and group IDs of a file
SYNOPSIS
int chown(
const char ∗path,
uid_t owner,
gid_t group ); int fchown(
int filedes,
uid_t owner,
gid_t group );
PARAMETERS
pathSpecifies the name of the file whose owner ID, group ID, or both are to be changed. If the path parameter refers to a symbolic link, the chown() function changes the ownership of the file pointed to by the symbolic link.
filedesSpecifies a valid open file descriptor.
ownerSpecifies a numeric value representing the owner ID.
groupSpecifies a numeric value representing the group ID.
DESCRIPTION
The chown() and fchown() functions change the owner and group of a file.
A process can change the value of the owner ID of a file only if the process has superuser privilege. A process can change the value of the file group ID if the effective user ID of the process matches the owner ID of the file, or if the process has superuser privilege. A process without superuser privilege can change the group ID of a file only to the value of its effective group ID or to a value in its supplementary group list.
If the value of the owner ID is changed and the process does not have superuser privilege, the set-user ID attribute (the S_ISUID bit) of a regular file is cleared.
The set-user ID attribute (S_ISUID bit) of a file is cleared upon successful return if:
•The file is a regular file.
•The process does not have superuser privilege.
The set-group ID attribute (S_ISGID bit) of a file is cleared upon successful return if:
•The file is a regular file.
•The process does not have superuser privilege.
If the owner or group parameter is specified as (uid_t)-1 or (gid_t)-t respectively, the corresponding ID of the file is unchanged.
Upon successful completion, the chown() and fchown() functions mark the st_ctime field of the file for update.
AES Support Level:
Full use (chown()) Trial use (fchown())
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, the chown() and fchown() functions return a value of 0 (zero). Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned, the owner and group of the file remain unchanged, and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
If the chown() function fails, errno may be set to one of the following values:
[EACCES]Search permission is denied on a component of path.
[EFAULT]The path parameter is an invalid address.
[ELOOP]Too many links were encountered in translating path.
[ENAMETOOLONG]
The length of the path argument exceeds PATH_MAX or a pathname component is longer than NAME_MAX.
[ENOTDIR]A compenent of path is not a directory.
[ENOENT]The path parameter does not exist or is an empty string.
[EPERM]The effective user ID does not match the ID of the owner of the file, and the calling process does not have appropriate privilege.
[EROFS]The named file resides on a read-only file system.
If the fchown() function fails, errno may be set to one of the following values:
[EBADF]The file descriptor filedes is not valid.
[EROFS]The file referred to by filedes resides on a read-only file system.
[EPERM]The effective user ID does not match the ID of the owner of the file, and the calling process does not have appropriate privilege.
RELATED INFORMATION
Commands: chown(1)