CHROOT(8)

📦
version 9.7 · 9 versions
, in debian trixie

💖 CHROOT — the chroot(8) glow-up 💖

okay bestie, sit down, hydrate, because we're talking about chroot, a User Commands classic. She's giving "run a command or an interactive shell, but inside a special root directory" and honestly? she ate. 👑

✨ NAME ✨

chroot — run a command, or an interactive shell, with a special root directory. yes that's the whole name section, she's concise, she's iconic, periodt. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

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

two moods, two lines. pick your fighter. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So basically: you run COMMAND with the root directory set to NEWROOT. that's it, that's the whole vibe. 🌈

And here are the flags, and bestie, I need you to know every single one of them, no skipping, no skimming, this is a no-skim zone:

  • --groups=G_LIST — specify supplementary groups as g1,g2,..,gN ✨
  • --userspec=USER:GROUP — specify the user and group (either an ID or a name, dealer's choice) to use 💫
  • --skip-chdir — do not change the working directory to / 🙈
  • --help — display this help and exit 🫶
  • --version — output version information and exit ⭐

And the little detail that changes everything: if no command is given, it runs '"$SHELL" -i' (default: /bin/sh -i). so it just hands you a lil interactive shell like a gift. 🎁

💀 Exit status: 💀

the numbers are not a suggestion, they are a mood ring, here's the key:

  • 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 ✨

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Written by Roland McGrath. legend behaviour, honestly. 👑

🍓 REPORTING BUGS 🍓

Found something cursed? GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> 🫶

And hey — report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/> 🌸 they wanna hear it fr fr.

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

the lore continues in chroot(2) 💅

Packaged by Debian (9.7-3) 🎀

Copyright © 2025 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. no cap, no warranty, she said what she said. 💀

and that's the whole page bestie, love that for us. this one's GNU coreutils 9.7, dropped June 2025, CHROOT(8) forever and always. mwah. 💅💖✨

📦 where this page comes from