1SWITCH_ROOT(8)               System Administration              SWITCH_ROOT(8)
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NAME

6       switch_root  -  switch  to  another filesystem as the root of the mount
7       tree
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SYNOPSIS

10       switch_root [-hV]
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12       switch_root newroot init [arg...]
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DESCRIPTION

15       switch_root moves already mounted /proc, /dev and /sys to  newroot  and
16       makes newroot the new root filesystem and starts init process.
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18       WARNING:  switch_root  removes recursively all files and directories on
19       the current root filesystem.
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OPTIONS

23       -h, --help
24              show help and exit
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26       -V, --version
27              show version number and exit
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RETURN VALUE

31       switch_root returns 0 on success and 1 on failure.
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NOTES

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

44       mount(8), chroot(2), init(8), mkinitrd(8)
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AUTHORS

47       Peter Jones <pjones@redhat.com>
48       Jeremy Katz <katzj@redhat.com>
49       Karel Zak <kzak@redhat.com>
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AVAILABILITY

52       The switch_root command is part of the util-linux package and is avail‐
53       able from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.
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57util-linux                         June 2009                    SWITCH_ROOT(8)