You can use the chown command to change a file's ownership. In general, the syntax of the chown command is as follows:
chown user:group file
For example, you can change the ownership of the file mysmurf, so that user elliot is the owner, and group cartoon is the group owner, as follows:
smurf@ubuntu-linux:~$
smurf@ubuntu-linux:~$ chown elliot:cartoon mysmurf
chown: changing ownership of 'mysmurf': Operation not permitted
Oh! Only the root user can do it; let's switch to the root user and try again:
smurf@ubuntu-linux:~$ su -
Password:
root@ubuntu-linux:~# cd /home/smurf
root@ubuntu-linux:/home/smurf# chown elliot:cartoon mysmurf
Success! Now let's view the ownership of the file mysmurf:
root@ubuntu-linux:/home/smurf# ls -l mysmurf
-rw-r--r-- 1 elliot cartoon 0 Oct 22 15:09 mysmurf
As you can see, we have successfully changed the ownership of mysmurf. Also, you can change the user owner without changing the group owner. For example, if you want...
