CHROOT(1)

📦
version 9.12 · 17 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 CHROOT(1) — the "User Commands" girlies 🌸

okay so bestie, welcome to chroot, manual page 1 of the User Commands section 💅 she's an icon, she's a legend, and she is literally about to change what "root" even means for a whole process. no cap.

✨ NAME ✨

chroot — run command or interactive shell with special root directory 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

chroot [OPTION]... NEWROOT [COMMAND [ARG]...]

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Run COMMAND with root directory set to NEWROOT.

that's the whole vibe fr fr. you hand her a NEWROOT, you hand her a COMMAND, and she runs that command inside the new root like it's always lived there. main character energy, but for filesystem paths 👑

🌈 OPTIONS 🌈

  • --groups=G_LIST — specify supplementary groups as g1,g2,..,gN. yeah you just list them out, comma-separated, and she's gotchu 🫶
  • --userspec=USER:GROUP — specify user and group (ID or name) to use. ID or name, either one slays ✨
  • --skip-chdir — do not change working directory to /. she'll stay right where she is, no relocation, no drama 🙈
  • --help — display this help and exit. she will simply tell you how she works and then dip 💀
  • --version — output version information and exit. just the receipts, nothing more 🧚

If no command is given, run "$SHELL" -i (default: /bin/sh -i).

so like, if you don't give her a COMMAND? she's gonna drop you into an interactive shell instead. lowkey the nicest thing she does 💜

🍓 Exit status: 🍓

  • 125 — if the chroot command itself fails 😭
  • 126 — if COMMAND is found but cannot be invoked 💀
  • 127 — if COMMAND cannot be found 👻
  • - — the exit status of COMMAND otherwise ⭐
so like, 125 is "chroot herself tripped", 126 is "found her but she said no", 127 is "she's not here bestie". anything else? that's just COMMAND's own exit status, passed straight through. periodt.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Written by Roland McGrath. king behaviour, honestly 🌟

🎀 REPORTING BUGS 🎀

Report bugs to: <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.

Report any translation bugs to: <https://translationproject.org/team/>.

GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>

General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>

like please tell them, they wanna know, they're not gonna be weird about it i promise 💖

Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.

This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.

There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

bestie i need you to hear me on this one: There is NO WARRANTY. none. zero. not even a lil bit. to the extent permitted by law, obviously. go off and redistribute her tho, that part is fully encouraged 💅

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/chroot> or available locally via: info '(coreutils) chroot invocation'

iykyk — the (2) version is the syscall, this (1) one is the cute little command-line wrapper. different girls, same family 💜

and that's the whole page bestie 🫶 this was GNU coreutils 9.12, dated September 2026, and yes it's CHROOT(1) — go forth and change your root directory responsibly, mwah 💋✨

📦 where this page comes from