chown

chown

Similar to chmod, chown (change owner) is used to change the user or group affiliated with a file. To see a file's current owner and group, use ls -l, just like in the chmod lesson.

chown has a few different formats depending on what you want to change:

• chown user file.txt → changes the owner only
• chown user:group file.txt → changes both the owner and the group
• chown user: file.txt → changes the owner, and sets the group to that user's primary group
• chown :group file.txt → keeps the current owner, changes only the group

Just remember that whatever you specify gets changed, whatever you leave out stays the same!

⚠️ One catch: handing a file to a different user is something only root can do, so on your box you can't give your files away. Changing the group on a file you already own is fair game, though, and that's what the tasks below are about.

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Try it

There's a folder called lab in your home directory with two files in it that came back from a backup with the wrong group stamped on them. Take a look first:

cd lab
ls -l

You'll see roster.txt sitting in the staff group and mission.txt in games, even though you own both. Your group is user, so put them back.