, short for change owner, is a shell command for changing the owning user of Unix-based file system files including special files such as directories.

The ownership of a file may only be altered by a super-user (such as via <code>sudo</code>). A regular user cannot give away their ownership of a file.

The version of <code>chown</code> bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie and Jim Meyering.

The command is available for Windows via UnxUtils. The command was ported to IBM i.

See also

References

  • chown manual page
  • The chown Command by The Linux Information Project (LINFO)