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chdir(2)

chroot(2)

Name

chroot − change root directory

Syntax

chroot(dirname)
char *dirname;

Description

The dirname is the address of the pathname of a directory, terminated by a null byte.  The chroot system call causes this directory to become the root directory (/).

For a directory to become the root directory, a process must have execute (search) access to the directory. 

This call is restricted to the superuser. 

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. 

Diagnostics

The chroot system call fails and the root directory is unchanged under the following conditions:

[ENOTDIR] A component of the dirname is not a directory. 

[ENAMETOOLONG]
A component of a dirname exceeded 255 characters, or an entire dirname exceeded 1023 characters. 

[ENOENT] The dirname argument points to the name of a directory which does not exist, or to an empty string and the environment defined is POSIX or SYSTEM_FIVE. 

[EFAULT] The dirname points outside the process’s allocated address space. 

[ELOOP] Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname. 

[EIO] An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system. 

[ESTALE] The file handle given in the argument is invalid.  The file referred to by that file handle no longer exists or has been revoked. 

[ETIMEDOUT] A connect request or remote file operation failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time that is dependent on the communications protocol. 

[EPERM] The effective user ID is not that of superuser. 

See Also

chdir(2)

Typewritten Software • bear@typewritten.org • Edmonds, WA 98026