LFCS Essential Commands Practice Question
A developer wants to change the ownership of a directory and all its contents recursively to user 'appuser' and group 'appgroup'. Which command accomplishes this?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is that candidates often forget the `-R` flag on the second command in compound solutions, or they mistakenly believe `chown user:` sets a specific group rather than the user's default group, leading them to choose options that only partially apply the ownership change.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
chown -R appuser:appgroup /app
The `chown -R appuser:appgroup /app` command recursively changes both the user and group ownership of the `/app` directory and all its contents. The `-R` flag ensures recursion, and the colon-separated `user:group` syntax sets both ownership attributes in a single command.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
chown -R appuser:appgroup /app
Why this is correct
Correct: recursive owner:group change.
- ✗
chown -R appuser /app && chgrp appgroup /app
Why it's wrong here
Changes owner recursively, but group only on top directory.
- ✗
chgrp -R appgroup /app && chown appuser /app
Why it's wrong here
Only changes group recursively, then owner only on top directory.
- ✗
chown -R appuser: /app && chgrp -R appgroup /app
Why it's wrong here
First command changes owner to appuser and group to login group, second changes group recursively, but redundant.
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Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This LFCS practice question is part of Courseiva's free Linux Foundation certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the LFCS exam.