PIVOT_ROOT(2) Linux Programmer's Manual PIVOT_ROOT(2)NAMEpivot_root - change the root file system
SYNOPSIS
int pivot_root(const char *new_root, const char *put_old);
DESCRIPTIONpivot_root() moves the root file system of the current process to the
directory put_old and makes new_root the new root file system of the
current process.
The typical use of pivot_root() is during system startup, when the sys‐
tem mounts a temporary root file system (e.g. an initrd), then mounts
the real root file system, and eventually turns the latter into the
current root of all relevant processes or threads.
pivot_root() may or may not change the current root and the current
working directory (cwd) of any processes or threads which use the old
root directory. The caller of pivot_root() must ensure that processes
with root or cwd at the old root operate correctly in either case. An
easy way to ensure this is to change their root and cwd to new_root
before invoking pivot_root().
The paragraph above is intentionally vague because the implementation
of pivot_root() may change in the future. At the time of writing,
pivot_root() changes root and cwd of each process or thread to new_root
if they point to the old root directory. This is necessary in order to
prevent kernel threads from keeping the old root directory busy with
their root and cwd, even if they never access the file system in any
way. In the future, there may be a mechanism for kernel threads to
explicitly relinquish any access to the file system, such that this
fairly intrusive mechanism can be removed from pivot_root().
Note that this also applies to the current process: pivot_root() may or
may not affect its cwd. It is therefore recommended to call chdir("/")
immediately after pivot_root().
The following restrictions apply to new_root and put_old:
- They must be directories.
- new_root and put_old must not be on the same file system as the cur‐
rent root.
- put_old must be underneath new_root, i.e. adding a non-zero number
of /.. to the string pointed to by put_old must yield the same
directory as new_root.
- No other file system may be mounted on put_old.
See also pivot_root(8) for additional usage examples.
If the current root is not a mount point (e.g. after chroot(2) or
pivot_root(), see also below), not the old root directory, but the
mount point of that file system is mounted on put_old.
new_root does not have to be a mount point. In this case, /proc/mounts
will show the mount point of the file system containing new_root as
root (/).
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
set appropriately.
ERRORSpivot_root() may return (in errno) any of the errors returned by
stat(2). Additionally, it may return:
EBUSY new_root or put_old are on the current root file system, or a
file system is already mounted on put_old.
EINVAL put_old is not underneath new_root.
ENOTDIR
new_root or put_old is not a directory.
EPERM The current process does not have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.
VERSIONSpivot_root() was introduced in Linux 2.3.41.
CONFORMING TOpivot_root() is Linux specific and hence is not portable.
BUGSpivot_root() should not have to change root and cwd of all other pro‐
cesses in the system.
Some of the more obscure uses of pivot_root() may quickly lead to
insanity.
NOTES
Glibc does not provide a wrapper for this system call; call it using
syscall(2).
SEE ALSOchdir(2), chroot(2), stat(2), initrd(4), pivot_root(8)Linux 2.6.7 2007-06-01 PIVOT_ROOT(2)
