File Permissions
chown
Change file owner and group ownership.
Synopsis
syntax
chown [OPTION]... [OWNER][:GROUP] FILE...
Examples
Change owner and group
sudo chown user:group file.txt
Recursively set web server ownership
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www
Change group only
sudo chown :developers project/
Copy ownership from reference
sudo chown --reference=ref.txt target.txt
Common options
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| -R | Operate recursively |
| -v | Verbose output |
| -c | Report only changes |
| --reference | Copy ownership from reference file |
| -h | Affect symlinks instead of targets |
About chown
The `chown` command change file owner and group ownership. File permission commands control access to files and directories on Linux.
The Unix permission model uses owner, group, and other categories with read, write, and execute bits. Properly managing permissions is essential for system security, multi-user environments, and running services that require specific access levels.
The command accepts 5 commonly used flags shown above, though the full set of options is available in the man page (`man chown`). The 4 examples on this page cover typical real-world usage patterns that you can copy and adapt for your own workflows.
Related commands
More File Permissions Commands
Other commands in the File Permissions category