chroot(2)
- NetBSD Manual Pages
CHROOT(2) NetBSD Programmer's Manual CHROOT(2)
NAME
chroot - change root directory
LIBRARY
Standard C Library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <unistd.h>
int
chroot(const char *dirname);
DESCRIPTION
dirname is the address of the pathname of a directory, terminated by an
ASCII NUL. chroot() causes dirname to become the root directory, that
is, the starting point for path searches of pathnames beginning with `/'.
In order for a directory to become the root directory a process must have
execute (search) access for that directory.
If the current working directory is not at or under the new root directo-
ry, it is silently set to the new root directory. It should be noted
that, on most other systems, chroot() has no effect on the process's cur-
rent directory.
This call is restricted to the super-user.
RETURN VALUES
Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned. Otherwise, a value
of -1 is returned and errno is set to indicate an error.
ERRORS
chroot() will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
[ENOTDIR] A component of the path name is not a directory.
[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a pathname exceeded {NAME_MAX} characters,
or an entire path name exceeded {PATH_MAX} characters.
[ENOENT] The named directory does not exist.
[EACCES] Search permission is denied for any component of the path
name.
[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the
pathname.
[EFAULT] dirname points outside the process's allocated address
space.
[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the
file system.
SEE ALSO
chdir(2)
HISTORY
The chroot() function call appeared in 4.2BSD. Working directory han-
dling was changed in NetBSD 1.4 to prevent one way a process could use a
second chroot() call to a different directory to "escape" from the re-
stricted subtree.
NetBSD 1.5 June 4, 1993 1
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