Home / ubuntu / Questions / 1056799
Accepted
Jagdeep Tannenbaum
Asked: 2018-07-17 23:22:49 +0800 CST

Is there documentation for chown that is easier to understand?

  • 772

I am relatively knew to Ubuntu and I want to learn about the chown command, so I tried to read the man chown but I find it very difficult to understand. Is there a document for this that is simpler and easier to understand?

manpage chown

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Actually there is such documentation. Open a command line terminal - CtrlAltT and enter:

    info chown

    you will find this document uses less technical terms and phrasing, and explains the command in a more "conversational" manner. It is therefore easier to read and understand for beginner users.

    After reading the info page I recommend familiarizing yourself with the man page for chown, because the man pages tend to be more succinct and complete.

    • 30

  2. I suggest installing tldr project:

    $ tldr chown
# chown                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

  Change user and group ownership of files and folders.                                                                                                                                                                                       

- Change the owner user of a file/folder:                                                                                                                                                                                                     

  chown user path/to/file                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

- Change the owner user and group of a file/folder:                                                                                                                                                                                           

  chown user:group path/to/file                                                                                                                                                                                                               

- Recursively change the owner of a folder and its contents:                                                                                                                                                                                  

  chown -R user path/to/folder                                                                                                                                                                                                                

- Change the owner of a symbolic link:                                                                                                                                                                                                        

  chown -h user path/to/symlink                                                                                                                                                                                                               

- Change the owner of a file/folder to match a reference file:                                                                                                                                                                                

  chown --reference=path/to/reference_file path/to/file
    • 29

  3. Not supposed to post link only answers (for which I apologise) but I think this link might be what you are looking for as it explains things in simple detail with examples.

    • 7

  4. I love the linux today tutorials. Just google linux today and command you are looking for. Most common commands have articles.

    https://www.howtoforge.com/linux-chown-command/

    • 1