Introduction to chgrp command in Linux
chgrp command is used to change the group ownership of a file or directory in the Linux system. Every file and directory in Linux has an owner and group. chown command can be used to change both owner and group of a file or directory. Every group in the Linux system has a unique name and group ID.
chgrp vs chown command comparison
chgrp command changes only group ownership, whereas chown command changes both user and group ownership. chown command can take both user and group as arguments.
$ sudo chown user_name:group _name file_name
Sample Output:
For more information on chown command, please refer to our article 15 most used chown command in Linux.
chgrp command takes group name as an argument. The basic syntax of chgrp command would be:
$ sudo chgrp [option] group_name file_name
Different examples to use chgrp command
The root permission is required to execute the chgrp command for changing the group ownership of a file or directory. The group name must be valid to use as an argument. You can create a new group by using the groupadd command.
To view the owner and group of a file or directory, you can use ls -l command. Here, test is the file name, deepak is an owner/user and linux is a group.
$ ls -l test
-rw-rw-r-- 1 deepak linux 45 Sep 4 23:07 test
In this article, you will learn to change the group ownership of a file or directory with the help of chgrp command.
1. chgrp command to change the group ownership of a file
This is a simple command that changes the group ownership of a file.
$ sudo chgrp group_name file_name
Sample Output:
In the above output, the group owner of the file test is deepak. We changed it to the group linux using chgrp command.
It also takes multiple files as an argument. It will assign the same group to all files.
2. Change the group ownership of the directory using the chgrp command
You can use the chgrp command to change the group ownership of the directory.
$ sudo chgrp group_name dir_name
Sample Output:
Here, we have changed the group ownership of the directory test_dir from deepak to linux.
You can also use the complete file or directory path instead of the name. Let's change the group ownership of the file hello to deepak using its path.
3. chgrp command to display the process information
-v or --verbose option displays the information of every file processed by chgrp command.
$ sudo chgrp -v group_name file_name
OR
$ sudo chgrp --verbose group_name file_name
Sample Output:
It displays the information whether the group ownership is changed or not in a file or directory.
4. chgrp command to display the information only when a change is made
It is similar to the previous command. The only difference is that it displays the information only when a change is made in group ownership.
-c or --changes option displays the information if the group ownership is changed in a file or directory.
$ sudo chgrp -c group_name file_name
OR
$ sudo chgrp --changes group_name file_name
Sample Output:
5. Copy group ownership from one file to another using chgrp command
You can use the group ownership of a file or directory as a reference rather than specifying the group name. --reference=RFILE option allows you to use RFILE's group to change the group ownership of a file or directory.
$ sudo chgrp --reference=RFILE file_name
Sample Output:
In the above output, we took the file test as a reference to change the group ownership of a directory test_dir.
6. Use chgrp command recursively to operate on files and directories
-R option allows you to change the group ownership of the directory and all of its content recursively. It also includes sub-directories and their files. This command is useful when all the files in the directory need the same group ownership.
$ sudo chgrp -R group_name dir_name
OR
$ sudo chgrp --recursive group_name dir_name
Sample Output:
Here, we have changed the group ownership of the directory test_dir and all of its files using -R option.
7. Change the group ownership of symbolic link file using chgrp command
A symbolic link file is a type of file that points to another file. To create a symbolic link file, you can use:
$ ln -s source_file symbolic_filename
Normally, when you change the group ownership of a symbolic link file, the group ownership of the pointed file changes. -h or --no-derefence option allows you to change the group ownership of a symbolic link file.
$ sudo chgrp --no-derefence group_name symbolic_filename
OR
$ sudo chgrp -h group_name symbolic_filename
Sample Output:
As you can see, the group ownership of a symbolic link file is only changed.
8. chgrp command to hide or suppress the error messages
-f, --silent or --quiet option hides the error messages in the output.
$ sudo chgrp -f
OR
$ sudo chgrp --silent
OR
$ sudo chgrp --quiet
Sample Output:
But, it does not hide the error messages due to invalid group or syntax.
9. chgrp command to not operate recursively on the root directory
By default, -R option operates on the root directory(/) recursively and changes the group ownership of all of its content. --preserve-root option does not allow to operate recursively on the root directory.
$ sudo chgrp --preserve-root
Sample Output:
10. chgrp command to change ownership of source directory linked to symbolic link
By default, when operating recursively on a symbolic link directory, it only changes the group ownership of a symbolic link directory. But with -H option, it changes the group ownership of the source directory and all of its content.
$ sudo chgrp -H -R group_name symbolic_dir
Sample Output:
The group ownership of the symbolic link directory is not changed. The command argument is passed to the source directory. So, the group ownership of the source directory and its files are changed.
Conclusion
Now, you can easily change the group ownership of any file or directory in the Linux system. These are the most used chgrp commands in Linux, which have been tested in Ubuntu. You can also use these commands in RHEL, CentOS, Fedora, Debian, and other Linux distributions.
What's Next
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Further Reading
