Command library / chown

Change file owner and group

Changes WHO owns a file — as opposed to chmod, which changes what the owner is allowed to do. The form is owner:group, either half optional: 'deploy' changes just the owner, ':www-data' changes just the group, 'deploy:www-data' changes both at once.

Usage

Options and flags

• owner[:group]

  new owner and/or group

• file

  file or directory to change

• -R

  recursive: apply to a directory and everything inside it

• -v

  verbose: print every file that is changed

Examples

• chown deploy backup.sh

  Give the file to a new owner, leave the group untouched.

• chown deploy:www-data /var/www/app

  Set both owner and group in one command — the classic web-deploy pattern.

• chown -R deploy:www-data /var/www/app

  Same, but walk into every file and subfolder.

• chown :www-data upload.php

  Change only the group, leaving the owner exactly as it was.

Common mistakes

Related commands