NAME¶

switch_root - switch to another filesystem as the root of the mount tree.

SYNOPSIS¶

switch_root [-hV]

switch_root newroot init [arg...]

DESCRIPTION¶

switch_root moves already mounted /proc, /dev and /sys to newroot and makes newroot the new root filesystem and starts init process.

WARNING: switch_root removes recursively all files and directories on the current root filesystem.

OPTIONS¶

-h, --help

show help and exit

-V, --version

show version number and exit

RETURN VALUE¶

switch_root returns 0 on success and 1 on failure.

NOTES¶

switch_root will fail to function if newroot is not the root of a mount. If you want to switch root into a directory that does not meet this requirement then you can first use a bind-mounting trick to turn any directory into a mount point:

mount --bind $DIR $DIR

SEE ALSO¶

mount(8) chroot(2) init(8) mkinitrd(8)

AUTHORS¶

Peter Jones <pjones@redhat.com>
Jeremy Katz <katzj@redhat.com>
Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>

AVAILABILITY¶

The switch_root command is part of the util-linux-ng package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux-ng/.