chgrp(1p) — Linux manual page
CHGRP(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual CHGRP(1P)
PROLOG
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
chgrp — change the file group ownership
SYNOPSIS
chgrp [-h] group file...
chgrp -R [-H|-L|-P] group file...
DESCRIPTION
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
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
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
Not used.
INPUT FILES
None.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
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
Default.
STDOUT
Not used.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
None.
EXIT STATUS
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
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
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
None.
RATIONALE
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
None.
SEE ALSO
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
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)