xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/chroot.2 (revision 5ab4936e8fc95fd6a29c1742c167d35613ba10c6)
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30.\"     @(#)chroot.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
31.\"
32.Dd April 18, 2001
33.Dt CHROOT 2
34.Os
35.Sh NAME
36.Nm chroot ,
37.Nm fchroot
38.Nd change root directory
39.Sh LIBRARY
40.Lb libc
41.Sh SYNOPSIS
42.In unistd.h
43.Ft int
44.Fn chroot "const char *dirname"
45.Ft int
46.Fn fchroot "int fd"
47.Sh DESCRIPTION
48.Fa dirname
49is the address of the pathname of a directory, terminated by an ASCII NUL.
50.Fn chroot
51causes
52.Fa dirname
53to become the root directory,
54that is, the starting point for path searches of pathnames
55beginning with
56.Ql / .
57.Pp
58In order for a directory to become the root directory
59a process must have execute (search) access for that directory.
60.Pp
61If the current working directory is not at or under the new root
62directory, it is silently set to the new root directory.
63It should be noted that, on most other systems,
64.Fn chroot
65has no effect on the process's current directory.
66.Pp
67This call is restricted to the super-user.
68.Pp
69The
70.Fn fchroot
71function performs the same operation on an open directory file
72known by the file descriptor
73.Fa fd .
74.Sh RETURN VALUES
75Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.
76Otherwise, a value of \-1 is returned and
77.Va errno
78is set to indicate an error.
79.Sh ERRORS
80.Fn chroot
81will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
82.Bl -tag -width Er
83.It Bq Er EACCES
84Search permission is denied for any component of the path name.
85.It Bq Er EFAULT
86.Fa dirname
87points outside the process's allocated address space.
88.It Bq Er EIO
89An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
90.It Bq Er ELOOP
91Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
92.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
93A component of a pathname exceeded
94.Brq Dv NAME_MAX
95characters, or an entire path name exceeded
96.Brq Dv PATH_MAX
97characters.
98.It Bq Er ENOENT
99The named directory does not exist.
100.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
101A component of the path name is not a directory.
102.It Bq Er EPERM
103The effective user ID of the calling process is not the super-user.
104.El
105.Pp
106.Fn fchroot
107will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
108.Bl -tag -width Er
109.It Bq Er EACCES
110Search permission is denied for the directory referenced
111by the file descriptor.
112.It Bq Er EBADF
113The argument
114.Fa fd
115is not a valid file descriptor.
116.It Bq Er EIO
117An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
118.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
119The argument
120.Fa fd
121does not reference a directory.
122.It Bq Er EPERM
123The effective user ID of the calling process is not the super-user.
124.El
125.Sh SEE ALSO
126.Xr chdir 2
127.Sh STANDARDS
128The
129.Fn chroot
130function conforms to
131.St -xsh5 ,
132with the restriction that the calling process' working directory must be at
133or under the new root directory.
134Otherwise, the working directory is silently set to the new root directory;
135this is an extension to the standard.
136.Pp
137.Fn chroot
138was declared a legacy interface, and subsequently removed in
139.St -p1003.1-2001 .
140.Sh HISTORY
141The
142.Fn chroot
143function call appeared in
144.Bx 4.2 .
145Working directory handling was changed in
146.Nx 1.4
147to prevent one way a process could use a second
148.Fn chroot
149call to a different directory to "escape" from the restricted subtree.
150The
151.Fn fchroot
152function appeared in
153.Nx 1.4 .
154