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I have the following file for which i am the owner .

-rw-r----- 1 hhebburs users 40 Oct 9 15:43 failed_xls

but chown is not working .

/home/hhebburs>chown mwoods failed_xls

chown: failed_xls: Not owner

What am i doing wrong ?

I understand now that i cant give away files . Now my problem is I have a whole bunch of files with write permissions on them and i am not the root .

Now i can zip the files but the minute i zip the files i become the owner . . After Zipping i still want the owner to be the one who created the file. and not me . Any way that is feasible ?

hemanth
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  • @John1024: I understand now that i cant give away files . Now my problem is I have a whole bunch of files with write permissions on them and i am not the root .

    Now i can zip the files but the minute i zip the files i become the owner . . After Zipping i still want the owner to be the one who created the file. and not me . Any way that is feasible ?

     – hemanth Oct 14 '15 at 23:24

1 Answers1

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Users may only run chown if they have the target user and group privileges as explained in detail in the article here.

Community
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Rahul Khimasia
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  • I understand now that i cant give away files . Now my problem is I have a whole bunch of files with write permissions on them and i am not the root .

    Now i can zip the files but the minute i zip the files i become the owner . . After Zipping i still want the owner to be the one who created the file. and not me . Any way that is feasible ?

     – hemanth Oct 14 '15 at 23:25
  • You could ask the owner to copy your zip file and then they would become the owner of the copied file, after which you could delete your zip file. – Rahul Khimasia Oct 14 '15 at 23:43