chown (change ownership) in Linux CLI - Cheat Sheet & Quick Revision

Recall & Review

beginner

What does the chown command do in Linux?

The chown command changes the owner and/or group of a file or directory.

beginner

How do you change the owner of a file named report.txt to user alice?

Use the command: chown alice report.txt to change the owner to alice.

intermediate

How can you change both the owner to bob and the group to staff for a file data.csv?

Use chown bob:staff data.csv to change owner to bob and group to staff.

intermediate

What option do you use with chown to change ownership recursively for all files and folders inside a directory?

Use the -R option, like chown -R alice folder/, to change ownership recursively.

beginner

Why do you need superuser (root) privileges to use chown?

Changing ownership affects system security, so only the superuser can change file owners to prevent unauthorized access.

Which command changes the owner of file.txt to user john?

A chmod john file.txt

B chown john file.txt

C chown file.txt john

D chgrp john file.txt

The correct syntax is chown owner filename. So chown john file.txt changes the owner to john.

How do you change the owner and group of doc.pdf to mary and editors respectively?

A chown mary:editors doc.pdf

B chown editors:mary doc.pdf

C chown doc.pdf mary editors

D chmod mary:editors doc.pdf

Use chown owner:group filename to change both owner and group.

What does the -R option do in chown?

A Runs command in read-only mode

B Restores previous ownership

C Changes ownership recursively for directories and files inside

D Removes ownership

The -R option applies ownership changes to all files and subdirectories inside a directory.

Who can use chown to change file ownership?

A Only the superuser (root)

B Any user on the system

C Only the file owner

D Only users in the same group

Only the superuser can change file ownership to maintain system security.

What happens if you run chown alice file.txt but you are not root?

A File permissions change instead

B Ownership changes successfully

C File is deleted

D You get a permission denied error

Without root privileges, chown will fail with a permission denied error.

Explain how to change the owner and group of a file using chown. Include an example.

Think about the format with colon separating owner and group.

Describe why changing file ownership requires superuser privileges and what could happen if it didn't.

Consider what ownership means for file access.