CHROOTUID(1)

✨ chrootuid — run command in restricted environment ✨

okay bestie, buckle up 💖 this is chrootuid, from section 1 of the General Commands Manual, and it's literally the girl who locks the door behind you and hands you a fake ID. she builds a whole tiny world for a command to live in. no cap.

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

chrootuid [-i] newroot newuser command...

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so here's the vibe: chrootuid sets up a restricted environment for executing command. that's the whole main character move.

• Access to the file system is restricted to the newroot subtree — like, you do not get to peek outside, bestie, that door is closed 🔒
• Privileges are restricted to those of the newuser account, which must be a known account in the unrestricted environment (iykyk — she has to exist in the real world first before she can move into the tiny house)
• The initial working directory is changed to newroot

the way she does this is so smart actually — chrootuid combines chroot(8) and su(1) into one single program, so that there is no need to have commands such as /usr/bin/su sitting around inside the restricted environment. like, the tiny world doesn't need a whole su binary, she brought her own 💅 iconic behavior fr fr.

⚠️ Only the superuser can use the chrootuid command. not you. not me. root only, periodt. 👑

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

okay so there is literally only one option and she ate:

• -i — makes it run in interactive mode ✨ Errors get printed on stderr instead of through syslog, and the exit status will be 1 if there are any errors.

that's it. one option. she's minimal. she's focused. she's not doing too much. 🫶

---

💜 RETURN CODES 💜

two moods, bestie:

• When running in daemon mode (the default), the exit status of chrootuid is always 0. always. no matter what. she's unbothered.
• When running in interactive mode, it will exit with an exit status of 1 if there is any error in its invocation. otherwise, the exit status is the exit status of command — so the command's own result is what you get back.

---

🌈 DIAGNOSTICS 🌈

where do the problems go? depends on the mode, bestie:

• daemon mode → problems are reported to the syslog daemon
• interactive mode → errors are reported on stderr

same tea, different cup 🍓

---

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• chroot(8)
• su(1)

go read those too, they're the ancestors, the blueprint, the lore 📚

---

👑 AUTHOR(S) 👑

• Wietse Venema
• Eindhoven University of Technology
• Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
• Den Dolech 2, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands
• IBM T.J. Watson Research
• P.O. Box 704
• Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA

---

🧚 CREATION DATE 🧚

Tue Oct 13 11:37:29 MET 1992

a legend was born in 1992 and she's still serving 💖

---

🦄 LAST MODIFICATION 🦄

Mon May 20 22:49:02 CEST 2007

---

💫 VERSION/RELEASE 💫

1.3

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 💅 big thank you to Wietse Venema for writing her, shoutout to the General Commands Manual for hosting, and a lil kiss to the 1.3 release — created back on Tue Oct 13 11:37:29 MET 1992, last touched up on Mon May 20 22:49:02 CEST 2007. slay, stay chrooted, stay safe 🎀✨💖