Chgrp

, short for change group, is a shell command for changing the group associated with a Unix-based file system file including special files such as directories. Changing the group of a file is restricted to a super-user (such as via ) or to the file's owning user if the user is in the specified group.

A file has access permissions for the owning user, a group and for others. Changing the group for a file changes access to it based on users' group memberships.

History

The command was originally developed as part of the Unix operating system by AT&T Bell Laboratories. It is available in most Unix-like systems, Plan 9, Inferno and IBM i.

The version of <code>chgrp</code> bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie.

Use

Generally, the syntax can be described as:

chgrp [options] group files

• group specifies the group with which the files should be associated; may be either a symbolic name or an identifier
• files specifies one or more files, which may be the result of a glob expression like

Options:

• Recurse through directories
• Verbose output: log the name of each file changed
• Force or forge ahead even if an error occurs

Examples

The following demonstrates changing the group of files matching to staff provided the user owns the files (is gbeeker) and is a member of staff. The change will allow members of the group staff to modify the files since the group-class permissions (read/write) will apply, not the others-class permissions (read only).

See also

References

External links