xref: /netbsd-src/lib/libc/sys/chroot.2 (revision 481fca6e59249d8ffcf24fef7cfbe7b131bfb080)
1.\"	$NetBSD: chroot.2,v 1.12 1999/12/02 21:42:36 kleink Exp $
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34.\"     @(#)chroot.2	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/4/93
35.\"
36.Dd June 4, 1993
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.Fd #include <unistd.h>
46.Ft int
47.Fn chroot "const char *dirname"
48.Sh DESCRIPTION
49.Fa dirname
50is the address of the pathname of a directory, terminated by an ASCII NUL.
51.Fn chroot
52causes
53.Fa dirname
54to become the root directory,
55that is, the starting point for path searches of pathnames
56beginning with
57.Ql / .
58.Pp
59In order for a directory to become the root directory
60a process must have execute (search) access for that directory.
61.Pp
62If the current working directory is not at or under the new root
63directory, it is silently set to the new root directory.
64It should be noted that, on most other systems,
65.Fn chroot
66has no effect on the process's current directory.
67.Pp
68This call is restricted to the super-user.
69.Sh RETURN VALUES
70Upon successful completion, a value of 0 is returned.  Otherwise,
71a value of -1 is returned and
72.Va errno
73is set to indicate an error.
74.Sh ERRORS
75.Fn chroot
76will fail and the root directory will be unchanged if:
77.Bl -tag -width Er
78.It Bq Er ENOTDIR
79A component of the path name is not a directory.
80.It Bq Er ENAMETOOLONG
81A component of a pathname exceeded
82.Dv {NAME_MAX}
83characters, or an entire path name exceeded
84.Dv {PATH_MAX}
85characters.
86.It Bq Er ENOENT
87The named directory does not exist.
88.It Bq Er EACCES
89Search permission is denied for any component of the path name.
90.It Bq Er ELOOP
91Too many symbolic links were encountered in translating the pathname.
92.It Bq Er EFAULT
93.Fa dirname
94points outside the process's allocated address space.
95.It Bq Er EIO
96An I/O error occurred while reading from or writing to the file system.
97.El
98.Sh SEE ALSO
99.Xr chdir 2
100.Sh HISTORY
101The
102.Fn chroot
103function call appeared in
104.Bx 4.2 .
105Working directory handling was changed in
106.Nx 1.4
107to prevent one way a process could use a second
108.Fn chroot
109call to a different directory to "escape" from the restricted subtree.
110