The utility executed successfully and all requested changes were made. An error occurred. If, when invoked with the -R option, chown attempts but fails to change the user ID or, if the group operand is specified, group ID, of a particular file in a specified file hierarchy, it will continue to process the remaining files in the hierarchy. If chown cannot read or search a directory within a hierarchy, it will continue to process the other parts of the hierarchy that are accessible. Only the owner of a file or the user with appropriate privileges may change the owner or group of a file.
Some systems restrict the use of chown to a user with appropriate privileges.