chown(2) System Calls Manual chown(2)
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:
o chown() changes the ownership of the file specified by path, which
is dereferenced if it is a symbolic link.
o fchown() changes the ownership of the file referred to by the open
file descriptor fd.
o 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:
o 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.
o 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.
o 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 6.14 2025-05-06 chown(2)