chcon - change file security context
chcon [OPTION]... CONTEXT FILE...
chcon [OPTION]... [-u USER] [-r ROLE] [-l
RANGE] [-t TYPE] FILE...
chcon [OPTION]... --reference=RFILE FILE...
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
Written by Russell Coker and Jim Meyering.
GNU coreutils online help:
<https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to
<https://translationproject.org/team/>
Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License
GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later
<https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO
WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
Full documentation
<https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chcon>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chcon invocation'