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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
Display help text and exit.
-V, --version
Display version information 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 package and is available from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

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