chgrp(1p) — Linux manual page

PROLOG | NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | STDIN | INPUT FILES | ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES | ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS | STDOUT | STDERR | OUTPUT FILES | EXTENDED DESCRIPTION | EXIT STATUS | CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS | APPLICATION USAGE | EXAMPLES | RATIONALE | FUTURE DIRECTIONS | SEE ALSO | COPYRIGHT

CHGRP(1P)               POSIX Programmer's Manual              CHGRP(1P)

PROLOG         top

       This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual.  The
       Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
       corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
       or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.

NAME         top

       chgrp — change the file group ownership

SYNOPSIS         top

       chgrp [-h] group file...

       chgrp -R [-H|-L|-P] group file...

DESCRIPTION         top

       The chgrp utility shall set the group ID of the file named by
       each file operand to the group ID specified by the group operand.

       For each file operand, or, if the -R option is used, each file
       encountered while walking the directory trees specified by the
       file operands, the chgrp utility shall perform actions equivalent
       to the chown() function defined in the System Interfaces volume
       of POSIX.1‐2017, called with the following arguments:

        *  The file operand shall be used as the path argument.

        *  The user ID of the file shall be used as the owner argument.

        *  The specified group ID shall be used as the group argument.

       Unless chgrp is invoked by a process with appropriate privileges,
       the set-user-ID and set-group-ID bits of a regular file shall be
       cleared upon successful completion; the set-user-ID and set-
       group-ID bits of other file types may be cleared.

OPTIONS         top

       The chgrp utility shall conform to the Base Definitions volume of
       POSIX.1‐2017, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines.

       The following options shall be supported by the implementation:

       -h        For each file operand that names a file of type
                 symbolic link, chgrp shall attempt to set the group ID
                 of the symbolic link instead of the file referenced by
                 the symbolic link.

       -H        If the -R option is specified and a symbolic link
                 referencing a file of type directory is specified on
                 the command line, chgrp shall change the group of the
                 directory referenced by the symbolic link and all files
                 in the file hierarchy below it.

       -L        If the -R option is specified and a symbolic link
                 referencing a file of type directory is specified on
                 the command line or encountered during the traversal of
                 a file hierarchy, chgrp shall change the group of the
                 directory referenced by the symbolic link and all files
                 in the file hierarchy below it.

       -P        If the -R option is specified and a symbolic link is
                 specified on the command line or encountered during the
                 traversal of a file hierarchy, chgrp shall change the
                 group ID of the symbolic link. The chgrp utility shall
                 not follow the symbolic link to any other part of the
                 file hierarchy.

       -R        Recursively change file group IDs. For each file
                 operand that names a directory, chgrp shall change the
                 group of the directory and all files in the file
                 hierarchy below it. Unless a -H, -L, or -P option is
                 specified, it is unspecified which of these options
                 will be used as the default.

       Specifying more than one of the mutually-exclusive options -H,
       -L, and -P shall not be considered an error. The last option
       specified shall determine the behavior of the utility.

OPERANDS         top

       The following operands shall be supported:

       group     A group name from the group database or a numeric group
                 ID. Either specifies a group ID to be given to each
                 file named by one of the file operands. If a numeric
                 group operand exists in the group database as a group
                 name, the group ID number associated with that group
                 name is used as the group ID.

       file      A pathname of a file whose group ID is to be modified.

STDIN         top

       Not used.

INPUT FILES         top

       None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES         top

       The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
       chgrp:

       LANG      Provide a default value for the internationalization
                 variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
                 Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
                 Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
                 internationalization variables used to determine the
                 values of locale categories.)

       LC_ALL    If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
                 of all the other internationalization variables.

       LC_CTYPE  Determine the locale for the interpretation of
                 sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
                 example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
                 characters in arguments).

       LC_MESSAGES
                 Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
                 format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
                 standard error.

       NLSPATH   Determine the location of message catalogs for the
                 processing of LC_MESSAGES.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS         top

       Default.

STDOUT         top

       Not used.

STDERR         top

       The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES         top

       None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION         top

       None.

EXIT STATUS         top

       The following exit values shall be returned:

        0    The utility executed successfully and all requested changes
             were made.

       >0    An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS         top

       Default.

       The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE         top

       Only the owner of a file or the user with appropriate privileges
       may change the owner or group of a file.

       Some implementations restrict the use of chgrp to a user with
       appropriate privileges when the group specified is not the
       effective group ID or one of the supplementary group IDs of the
       calling process.

EXAMPLES         top

       None.

RATIONALE         top

       The System V and BSD versions use different exit status codes.
       Some implementations used the exit status as a count of the
       number of errors that occurred; this practice is unworkable since
       it can overflow the range of valid exit status values. The
       standard developers chose to mask these by specifying only 0 and
       >0 as exit values.

       The functionality of chgrp is described substantially through
       references to chown().  In this way, there is no duplication of
       effort required for describing the interactions of permissions,
       multiple groups, and so on.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS         top

       None.

SEE ALSO         top

       chmod(1p), chown(1p)

       The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
       Environment Variables, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines

       The System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1‐2017, chown(3p)

COPYRIGHT         top

       Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
       form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
       Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
       Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
       (C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
       Engineers, Inc and The Open Group.  In the event of any
       discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
       Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
       Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
       obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .

       Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
       are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
       the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
       https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .

IEEE/The Open Group               2017                         CHGRP(1P)

Pages that refer to this page: chown(1p)