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NAME
chown, fchown, lchown, fchownat - change ownership of a file
LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#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);
#include <fcntl.h> /* Definition of AT_* constants */
#include <unistd.h>
int fchownat(int dirfd, const char *path,
uid_t owner, gid_t group, int flags);
Feature Test Macro Requirements for glibc (see feature_test_macros(7)):
fchown(), lchown():
/* Since glibc 2.12: */ _POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
|| _XOPEN_SOURCE >= 500
|| /* glibc <= 2.19: */ _BSD_SOURCE
fchownat():
Since glibc 2.10:
_POSIX_C_SOURCE >= 200809L
Before glibc 2.10:
_ATFILE_SOURCE
DESCRIPTION
These system calls change the owner and group of a file. The chown(), fchown(), and lchown() system
calls differ only in how the file is specified:
• chown() changes the ownership of the file specified by path, which is dereferenced if it is a symbolic
link.
• fchown() changes the ownership of the file referred to by the open file descriptor fd.
• lchown() is like chown(), but does not dereference symbolic links.
Only a privileged process (Linux: one with the CAP_CHOWN capability) 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. A
privileged process (Linux: with CAP_CHOWN) 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 is changed by an unprivileged 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 behavior depends on the kernel version, and since Linux 2.2.13, root is treated like
other users. In case of a non-group-executable file (i.e., one for which the S_IXGRP bit is not set) the
S_ISGID bit indicates mandatory locking, and is not cleared by a chown().
When the owner or group of an executable file is changed (by any user), all capability sets for the file
are cleared.
fchownat()
The fchownat() system call operates in exactly the same way as chown(), except for the differences
described here.
If path is relative, then it is interpreted relative to the directory referred to by the file descriptor
dirfd (rather than relative to the current working directory of the calling process, as is done by
chown() for a relative pathname).
If path is relative and dirfd is the special value AT_FDCWD, then path is interpreted relative to the
current working directory of the calling process (like chown()).
If path is absolute, then dirfd is ignored.
The flags argument is a bit mask created by ORing together 0 or more of the following values;
AT_EMPTY_PATH (since Linux 2.6.39)
If path is an empty string, operate on the file referred to by dirfd (which may have been obtained
using the open(2) O_PATH flag). In this case, dirfd can refer to any type of file, not just a
directory. If dirfd is AT_FDCWD, the call operates on the current working directory. This flag
is Linux-specific; define _GNU_SOURCE to obtain its definition.
AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW
If path is a symbolic link, do not dereference it: instead operate on the link itself, like
lchown(). (By default, fchownat() dereferences symbolic links, like chown().)
See openat(2) for an explanation of the need for fchownat().
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
Depending on the filesystem, errors other than those listed below can be returned.
The more general errors for chown() are listed below.
EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix. (See also path_resolution(7).)
EBADF (fchown()) fd is not a valid open file descriptor.
EBADF (fchownat()) path is relative but dirfd is neither AT_FDCWD nor a valid file descriptor.
EFAULT path points outside your accessible address space.
EINVAL (fchownat()) Invalid flag specified in flags.
EIO (fchown()) A low-level I/O error occurred while modifying the inode.
ELOOP Too many symbolic links were encountered in resolving path.
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.
ENOTDIR
(fchownat()) path is relative and dirfd is a file descriptor referring to a file other than a
directory.
EPERM The calling process did not have the required permissions (see above) to change owner and/or
group.
EPERM The file is marked immutable or append-only. (See FS_IOC_SETFLAGS(2const).)
EROFS The named file resides on a read-only filesystem.
VERSIONS
The 4.4BSD version can be used only by the superuser (that is, ordinary users cannot give away files).
STANDARDS
POSIX.1-2008.
HISTORY
chown()
fchown()
lchown()
4.4BSD, SVr4, POSIX.1-2001.
fchownat()
POSIX.1-2008. Linux 2.6.16, glibc 2.4.
NOTES
Ownership of new files
When a new file is created (by, for example, open(2) or mkdir(2)), its owner is made the same as the
filesystem user ID of the creating process. The group of the file depends on a range of factors,
including the type of filesystem, the options used to mount the filesystem, and whether or not the set-
group-ID mode bit is enabled on the parent directory. If the filesystem supports the -o grpid (or,
synonymously -o bsdgroups) and -o nogrpid (or, synonymously -o sysvgroups) mount(8) options, then the
rules are as follows:
• If the filesystem is mounted with -o grpid, then the group of a new file is made the same as that of
the parent directory.
• If the filesystem is mounted with -o nogrpid and the set-group-ID bit is disabled on the parent
directory, then the group of a new file is made the same as the process's filesystem GID.
• If the filesystem is mounted with -o nogrpid and the set-group-ID bit is enabled on the parent
directory, then the group of a new file is made the same as that of the parent directory.
As at Linux 4.12, the -o grpid and -o nogrpid mount options are supported by ext2, ext3, ext4, and XFS.
Filesystems that don't support these mount options follow the -o nogrpid rules.
glibc notes
On older kernels where fchownat() is unavailable, the glibc wrapper function falls back to the use of
chown() and lchown(). When path is relative, glibc constructs a pathname based on the symbolic link in
/proc/self/fd that corresponds to the dirfd argument.
NFS
The chown() semantics are deliberately violated on NFS filesystems 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.
Historical details
The original Linux chown(), fchown(), and lchown() system calls supported only 16-bit user and group IDs.
Subsequently, Linux 2.4 added chown32(), fchown32(), and lchown32(), supporting 32-bit IDs. The glibc
chown(), fchown(), and lchown() wrapper functions transparently deal with the variations across kernel
versions.
Before Linux 2.1.81 (except 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 semantics as the old chown()) has got the same
syscall number, and chown() got the newly introduced number.
EXAMPLES
The following program changes the ownership of the file named in its second command-line argument to the
value specified in its first command-line argument. The new owner can be specified either as a numeric
user ID, or as a username (which is converted to a user ID by using getpwnam(3) to perform a lookup in
the system password file).
Program source
#include <pwd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *endptr;
uid_t uid;
struct passwd *pwd;
if (argc != 3 || argv[1][0] == '\0') {
fprintf(stderr, "%s <owner> <file>\n", argv[0]);
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
uid = strtol(argv[1], &endptr, 10); /* Allow a numeric string */
if (*endptr != '\0') { /* Was not pure numeric string */
pwd = getpwnam(argv[1]); /* Try getting UID for username */
if (pwd == NULL) {
perror("getpwnam");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
uid = pwd->pw_uid;
}
if (chown(argv[2], uid, -1) == -1) {
perror("chown");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
chgrp(1), chown(1), chmod(2), flock(2), path_resolution(7), symlink(7)
Linux man-pages 6.15 2025-05-17 chown(2)