`chgrp`

Change file group ownership (POSIX)

Syntax:

chgrp [-R] [-v] group file...

Options:

-R: Recursively change group ownership of files. For each file that names a directory, chgrp changes the group of the directory and of all files in the file hierarchy below it.
-v: Be verbose; display to stdout all the operations being performed.
group: A group name from the group database, or a numeric group ID.
file: The pathname of a file whose group ID is to be modified.

Description:

The chgrp utility lets you change the group ownership of one or more files. For each file you name, chgrp sets the file's group ID to that specified by the group argument.

If you invoke chgrp with the -R option, and chgrp attempts but fails to change the group ID of a particular file in a specified file hierarchy, it continues to process the remaining files in the hierarchy.

You must be root or the owner of the file in order to change its group ownership. The underlying filesystem might impose further restrictions. For example, the QNX 4 filesystem sets the _PC_CHOWN_RESTRICTED configuration variable; for more information, see pathconf() in the Neutrino Library Reference.

Examples:

Change the group of myfile to 27:

chgrp 27 myfile

Change the group of myfile to technical:

chgrp technical myfile

Files:

/etc/group

This file defines the known group IDs for the system. It associates group names with a numerical ID and a list of users who are members of the group.

Entries in this file appear in the following format:

groupname:unused:groupid:user[,user]...

Exit status:

0: The utility executed successfully and all requested changes were made.
>0: An error occurred.