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 sudo) 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 chgrp 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.1
The version of chgrp bundled in GNU coreutils was written by David MacKenzie.2
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 *.conf
Options:
- -R Recurse through directories
- -v Verbose output: log the name of each file changed
- -f Force or forge ahead even if an error occurs
Examples
The following demonstrates changing the group of files matching *.conf 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).
$ ls -l *.conf -rw-rw-r-- 1 gbeeker wheel 3545 Nov 04 2011 prog.conf -rw-rw-r-- 1 gbeeker wheel 3545 Nov 04 2011 prox.conf $ chgrp staff *.conf $ ls -l *.conf -rw-rw-r-- 1 gbeeker staff 3545 Nov 04 2011 prog.conf -rw-rw-r-- 1 gbeeker staff 3545 Nov 04 2011 prox.confSee also
- chmod – Shell command for changing access permissions of a file
- chown – Shell command for changing the owner of a file
- Group identifier (Unix) – Unix/POSIX system account group number; numeric value used to represent a specific groupPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets
- List of POSIX commands
External links
The Wikibook Guide to Unix has a page on the topic of: Commands- chgrp: change the file group ownership – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 4 from The Open Group
- chgrp(1) – Plan 9 Programmer's Manual, Volume 1
- chgrp(1) – Inferno General commands Manual
References
IBM. "IBM System i Version 7.2 Programming Qshell" (PDF). IBM. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-09-05. /wiki/IBM ↩
chgrp(1) – Linux User Manual – User Commands https://manned.org/chgrp.1 ↩