chown (change ownership) in Linux CLI - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

💻 Command Output

intermediate

What is the output of this chown command?

You run the command chown alice file.txt on a file owned by user bob. What will happen?

Linux CLI

ls -l file.txt
chown alice file.txt
ls -l file.txt

A The owner and group of file.txt both change to alice.

B The owner remains bob; the group changes to alice.

C The command fails with 'Operation not permitted' error.

D The owner of file.txt changes to alice; group remains unchanged.

💡 Hint

Think about what happens when you specify only a user in chown.

When you use chown alice file.txt, only the owner changes to alice. The group stays the same.

💻 Command Output

intermediate

What does this chown command do?

What is the effect of chown alice:developers file.txt?

Linux CLI

ls -l file.txt
chown alice:developers file.txt
ls -l file.txt

A Changes group to developers; owner remains unchanged.

B Changes owner to alice; group remains unchanged.

C Changes owner to alice and group to developers.

D Fails because developers group does not exist.

💡 Hint

Look at the syntax user:group in chown.

The syntax user:group changes both owner and group.

💻 Command Output

advanced

What error does this chown command produce?

You run chown alice: file.txt but get an error. What is the error?

Linux CLI

chown alice: file.txt

A chown: invalid user: 'alice:'

B chown: invalid group: ''

C No error; owner changes to alice, group unchanged.

D chown: missing operand after 'alice:'

💡 Hint

Check the syntax when specifying user and group with a colon.

A trailing colon with no group causes chown to look for a group named empty string, which is invalid.

💻 Command Output

advanced

What is the effect of this recursive chown command?

What happens when you run chown -R alice:staff /home/alice?

Linux CLI

chown -R alice:staff /home/alice

A Changes owner to alice and group to staff for /home/alice and all files inside.

B Changes owner and group only for /home/alice directory, not files inside.

C Fails because recursive option is invalid.

D Changes owner to alice but group remains unchanged for all files.

💡 Hint

What does the -R option do in chown?

The -R option applies ownership changes recursively to all files and directories inside the target.

💻 Command Output

expert

What is the output of this chown command with symbolic link?

Given a symbolic link link.txt pointing to file.txt, what does chown -h alice link.txt do?

Linux CLI

ls -l link.txt
chown -h alice link.txt
ls -l link.txt
ls -l file.txt

A Changes owner of the symbolic link link.txt to alice; target file.txt owner unchanged.

B Changes owner of the target file.txt to alice; link.txt owner unchanged.

C Changes owner of both link.txt and file.txt to alice.

D Fails with 'Operation not permitted' because of symbolic link.

💡 Hint

The -h option affects symbolic links differently than normal files.

The -h option changes the ownership of the symbolic link itself, not the target file.