PROLOG

       This  manual  page  is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The Linux implementation of
       this interface may differ (consult the corresponding Linux  manual  page  for  details  of
       Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME

       lchown — change the owner and group of a symbolic link

SYNOPSIS

       #include <unistd.h>

       int lchown(const char *path, uid_t owner, gid_t group);

DESCRIPTION

       The  lchown()  function shall be equivalent to chown(), except in the case where the named
       file is a symbolic link. In this case, lchown() shall change the ownership of the symbolic
       link  file  itself,  while chown() changes the ownership of the file or directory to which
       the symbolic link refers.

RETURN VALUE

       Upon successful completion, lchown() shall return 0. Otherwise, it shall return −1 and set
       errno to indicate an error.

ERRORS

       The lchown() function shall fail if:

       EACCES Search permission is denied on a component of the path prefix of path.

       EINVAL The owner or group ID is not a value supported by the implementation.

       ELOOP  A loop exists in symbolic links encountered during resolution of the path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The length of a component of a pathname is longer than {NAME_MAX}.

       ENOENT A component of path does not name an existing file or path is an empty string.

       ENOTDIR
              A  component  of the path prefix names an existing file that is neither a directory
              nor a symbolic link to a directory, or the path  argument  contains  at  least  one
              non-<slash> character and ends with one or more trailing <slash> characters and the
              last pathname component names an existing file that is neither a  directory  nor  a
              symbolic link to a directory.

       EPERM  The effective user ID does not match the owner of the file and the process does not
              have appropriate privileges.

       EROFS  The file resides on a read-only file system.

       The lchown() function may fail if:

       EIO    An I/O error occurred while reading or writing to the file system.

       EINTR  A signal was caught during execution of the function.

       ELOOP  More than {SYMLOOP_MAX} symbolic links were encountered during  resolution  of  the
              path argument.

       ENAMETOOLONG
              The  length  of a pathname exceeds {PATH_MAX}, or pathname resolution of a symbolic
              link produced an intermediate result with a length that exceeds {PATH_MAX}.

       The following sections are informative.

EXAMPLES

   Changing the Current Owner of a File
       The following example shows how to  change  the  ownership  of  the  symbolic  link  named
       /modules/pass1  to  the user ID associated with ``jones'' and the group ID associated with
       ``cnd''.

       The numeric value for the user ID is  obtained  by  using  the  getpwnam()  function.  The
       numeric value for the group ID is obtained by using the getgrnam() function.

           #include <sys/types.h>
           #include <unistd.h>
           #include <pwd.h>
           #include <grp.h>

           struct passwd *pwd;
           struct group  *grp;
           char          *path = "/modules/pass1";
           ...
           pwd = getpwnam("jones");
           grp = getgrnam("cnd");
           lchown(path, pwd->pw_uid, grp->gr_gid);

APPLICATION USAGE

       On  implementations  which  support symbolic links as directory entries rather than files,
       lchown() may fail.

RATIONALE

       None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

       None.

SEE ALSO

       chown(), symlink()

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2008, <unistd.h>

COPYRIGHT

       Portions of this text are reprinted and  reproduced  in  electronic  form  from  IEEE  Std
       1003.1,  2013  Edition,  Standard  for Information Technology -- Portable Operating System
       Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, Copyright (C) 2013  by  the
       Institute  of  Electrical  and  Electronics  Engineers,  Inc and The Open Group.  (This is
       POSIX.1-2008 with the  2013  Technical  Corrigendum  1  applied.)  In  the  event  of  any
       discrepancy  between  this  version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the
       original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The  original  Standard
       can be obtained online at http://www.unix.org/online.html .

       Any  typographical  or  formatting errors that appear in this page are most likely to have
       been introduced during the conversion of the source files to man page  format.  To  report
       such errors, see https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .