chown Interview Questions and Answers¶

Introduction¶

These questions test whether you understand what chown does, when to use it, and how to verify the result on Linux.

Beginner Questions¶

What does chown do?

It changes file owner and group ownership.

Show a basic command.

sudo chown alice report.txt

Intermediate Questions¶

Name useful options.

• -R: change ownership recursively.
• -v: show each ownership change.
• --reference=FILE: copy owner and group from another file.

Show a common administrator command.

sudo chown apache:apache /var/www/html/index.html

Scenario-Based Questions¶

How would you handle chown user:group?

sudo chown student:developers project.txt

What would you verify afterward?

ls -l report.txt

Expected output should look similar to:

-rw-r--r-- 1 alice admins 1200 May 30 10:00 report.txt

Practical Task Questions¶

Practice in a lab by running a safe version of the command, explaining the target, and showing the verification output.

Quick Review¶

sudo chown alice report.txt
sudo chown apache:apache /var/www/html/index.html
ls -l report.txt

Related Guides¶

• What is chown?
• chown examples
• chown user:group explained
• Recursive chown Usage

Summary¶

A strong chown answer includes the purpose, a correct example, a common mistake, and a verification command with output you can interpret.