Linux Commands | File Management | chown Change File/Directory Ownership

Check Ownership

To check ownership, use the following command.

ls -al

The command prints output in the following format.

-rw-r--r--   1 kimkc  staff      36864  5 10  2015 Currency.db

Here, the owner is kimkc, and the group identifier is staff.

Change File Ownership

Run the following command with root privileges.

Command

chown {owner}:{group identifier} {file name whose ownership you want to change}

The following command changes the owner of test.sh to aaa and the group identifier to bbb.

Example

chown aaa:bbb test.sh

Change Directory Ownership

Run the following command with root privileges.

Command

chown {owner}:{group identifier} {directory name whose ownership you want to change}

The following command changes only the owner of the /home/test directory to aaa and the group identifier to bbb.

Example

chown aaa:bbb /home/test

With this command, only the ownership of the /home/test directory changes. Subdirectories below it are not changed.

Change Ownership Including Subdirectories

Run the following command with root privileges.

Command

chown -R {owner}:{group identifier} {directory name whose ownership you want to change}

The following command changes the owner of the /home/test directory and all subdirectories and files under it to aaa, and changes the group identifier to bbb.

Example

chown -R aaa:bbb /home/test

With this command, the ownership of /home/test and all directories below it is changed.