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SWITCH_ROOT(8)                                  System Administration                                  SWITCH_ROOT(8)



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 direc‐
       tory into a mount point:

              mount --bind $DIR $DIR


SEE ALSO
       mount(8), chroot(2), init(8), mkinitrd(8)

AUTHORS
       Peter Jones <[email protected]>
       Jeremy Katz <[email protected]>
       Karel Zak <[email protected]>

AVAILABILITY
       The  switch_root  command  is  part  of  the  util-linux  package  and  is   available   from   ftp://ftp.ker‐
       nel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.



util-linux                                            June 2009                                        SWITCH_ROOT(8)