In the world of Linux and macOS (and other UNIX systems), every file and directory has an owner. The owner of a file has complete control over it and can determine its fate. However, there may be times when you need to change the owner of a file. This is where the chown command comes in handy.
To change the owner of a file, you can use the following syntax:
chown <owner> <file>
For example:
chown flavio test.txt
If a file is owned by the root user, you may not have permission to write to it as another user. In such cases, you can transfer the ownership of the file to yourself using the chown command.
Sometimes, you may need to change the ownership of a directory and all the files and subdirectories within it. To do this, you can use the -R flag:
chown -R <owner> <file>
Additionally, files and directories also have a group ownership. You can change the group ownership simultaneously with the owner by using the following syntax:
chown <owner>:<group> <file>
For example:
chown flavio:users test.txt
If you only want to change the group ownership of a file, you can use the chgrp command:
chgrp <group> <filename>
It’s important to note that the chown command works on Linux, macOS, WSL, and any UNIX environment.
Tags: Linux commands, chown, file ownership, UNIX systems