Reference

chroot(8)

run command or interactive shell with special root directory

NAME

chroot - run command or interactive shell with special root directory

SYNOPSIS

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

DESCRIPTION

Run COMMAND with root directory set to NEWROOT.

--groups=G_LIST

specify supplementary groups as g1,g2,..,gN

--userspec=USER:GROUP

specify user and group (ID or name) to use

--skip-chdir

do not change working directory to '/'

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

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

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

AUTHOR

Written by Roland McGrath.

REPORTING BUGS

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

SEE ALSO

chroot(2)

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

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.

History

--groups since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --help since Debian 2.2 (Potato); --skip-chdir since Debian 9 (Stretch); --userspec since Debian 6.0 (Squeeze); --version since Debian 1.3 (Bo).