CHCON(1) User Commands CHCON(1)
NAME
chcon - change file security context
SYNOPSIS
chcon [OPTION]... CONTEXT FILE...
chcon [OPTION]... [-u USER] [-r ROLE] [-l RANGE] [-t TYPE] FILE...
chcon [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...
DESCRIPTION
Change the SELinux security context of each FILE to CONTEXT. With
--reference, change the security context of each FILE to that of RFILE.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
--dereference
affect the referent of each symbolic link (this is the default),
rather than the symbolic link itself
-h, --no-dereference
affect symbolic links instead of any referenced file
-u, --user=USER
set user USER in the target security context
-r, --role=ROLE
set role ROLE in the target security context
-t, --type=TYPE
set type TYPE in the target security context
-l, --range=RANGE
set range RANGE in the target security context
--no-preserve-root
do not treat '/' specially (the default)
--preserve-root
fail to operate recursively on '/'
--reference=RFILE
use RFILE's security context rather than specifying a CONTEXT
value
-R, --recursive
operate on files and directories recursively
-v, --verbose
output a diagnostic for every file processed
The following options modify how a hierarchy is traversed when the -R
option is also specified. If more than one is specified, only the final
one takes effect.
-H if a command line argument is a symbolic link to a directory,
traverse it
-L traverse every symbolic link to a directory encountered
-P do not traverse any symbolic links (default)
--help display this help and exit
--version
output version information and exit
AUTHOR
Written by Russell Coker and Jim Meyering.
REPORTING BUGS
GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>
SEE ALSO
Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chcon>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chcon invocation'
Packaged by Debian (9.7-3)
Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/li-
censes/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
GNU coreutils 9.7 June 2025 CHCON(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 05:52:58 CET 2025.