Manual: gnuchcon

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: 
       Report any translation bugs to 

SEE ALSO
       Full documentation 
       or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chcon invocation'

       Packaged by Ubuntu (9.7-3ubuntu2)
       Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
       License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later .
       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					January 2026						    CHCON(1)