xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/chroot.2 (revision 001c68bd94f75ce9270b69227c4199fbf34ee396)
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34.\"     @(#)chroot.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
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36.Dd April 18, 2001
37.Dt CHROOT 2
38.Os
39.Sh NAME
40.Nm chroot
41.Nd change root directory
42.Sh LIBRARY
43.Lb libc
44.Sh SYNOPSIS
45.In unistd.h
46.Ft int
47.Fn chroot "const char *dirname"
48.Ft int
49.Fn fchroot "int fd"
50.Sh DESCRIPTION
51.Fa dirname
52is the address of the pathname of a directory, terminated by an ASCII NUL.
53.Fn chroot
54causes
55.Fa dirname
56to become the root directory,
57that is, the starting point for path searches of pathnames
58beginning with
59.Ql / .
60.Pp
61In order for a directory to become the root directory
62a process must have execute (search) access for that directory.
63.Pp
64If the current working directory is not at or under the new root
65directory, it is silently set to the new root directory.
66It should be noted that, on most other systems,
67.Fn chroot
68has no effect on the process's current directory.
69.Pp
70This call is restricted to the super-user.
71.Pp
72The
73.Fn fchroot
74function performs the same operation on an open directory file
75known by the file descriptor
76.Fa fd .
77.Sh RETURN VALUES
78Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.
79Otherwise, a value of -1 is returned and
80.Va errno
81is set to indicate an error.
82.Sh ERRORS
83.Fn chroot
84will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
85.Bl -tag -width Er
86.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
87A component of the path name is not a directory.
88.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
89A component of a pathname exceeded
90.Dv {NAME_MAX}
91characters, or an entire path name exceeded
92.Dv {PATH_MAX}
93characters.
94.It Bq Er ENOENT
95The named directory does not exist.
96.It Bq Er EACCES
97Search permission is denied for any component of the path name.
98.It Bq Er ELOOP
99Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
100.It Bq Er EFAULT
101.Fa dirname
102points outside the process's allocated address space.
103.It Bq Er EIO
104An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
105.It Bq Er EPERM
106The effective user ID of the calling process is not the super-user.
107.El
108.Pp
109.Fn fchroot
110will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
111.Bl -tag -width Er
112.It Bq Er EACCES
113Search permission is denied for the directory referenced
114by the file descriptor.
115.It Bq Er EBADF
116The argument
117.Fa fd
118is not a valid file descriptor.
119.It Bq Er EIO
120An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
121.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
122The argument
123.Fa fd
124does not reference a directory.
125.It Bq Er EPERM
126The effective user ID of the calling process is not the super-user.
127.El
128.Sh SEE ALSO
129.Xr chdir 2
130.Sh STANDARDS
131The
132.Fn chroot
133function conforms to
134.St -xsh5 ,
135with the restriction that the calling process' working directory must be at
136or under the new root directory.
137Otherwise, the working directory is silently set to the new root directory;
138this is an extension to the standard.
139.Pp
140.Fn chroot
141was declared a legacy interface, and subsequently removed in
142.St -p1003.1-2001 .
143.Sh HISTORY
144The
145.Fn chroot
146function call appeared in
147.Bx 4.2 .
148Working directory handling was changed in
149.Nx 1.4
150to prevent one way a process could use a second
151.Fn chroot
152call to a different directory to "escape" from the restricted subtree.
153The
154.Fn fchroot
155function appeared in
156.Nx 1.4 .
157