pivot_root(2) System Calls Manual pivot_root(2)
NAME
pivot_root - change the root mount
LIBRARY
Standard C library (libc, -lc)
SYNOPSIS
#include <sys/syscall.h> /* Definition of SYS_* constants */
#include <unistd.h>
int syscall(SYS_pivot_root, const char *new_root, const char *put_old);
Note: glibc provides no wrapper for pivot_root(), necessitating the use
of syscall(2).
DESCRIPTION
pivot_root() changes the root mount in the mount namespace of the call-
ing process. More precisely, it moves the root mount to the directory
put_old and makes new_root the new root mount. The calling process
must have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability in the user namespace that owns
the caller's mount namespace.
pivot_root() changes the root directory and the current working direc-
tory of each process or thread in the same mount namespace to new_root
if they point to the old root directory. (See also NOTES.) On the
other hand, pivot_root() does not change the caller's current working
directory (unless it is on the old root directory), and thus it should
be followed by a chdir("/") call.
The following restrictions apply:
• new_root and put_old must be directories.
• new_root and put_old must not be on the same mount as the current
root.
• put_old must be at or underneath new_root; that is, adding some non-
negative number of "/.." suffixes to the pathname pointed to by
put_old must yield the same directory as new_root.
• new_root must be a path to a mount point, but can't be "/". A path
that is not already a mount point can be converted into one by bind
mounting the path onto itself.
• The propagation type of the parent mount of new_root and the parent
mount of the current root directory must not be MS_SHARED; simi-
larly, if put_old is an existing mount point, its propagation type
must not be MS_SHARED. These restrictions ensure that pivot_root()
never propagates any changes to another mount namespace.
• The current root directory must be a mount point.
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. On error, -1 is returned, and errno is
set to indicate the error.
ERRORS
pivot_root() may fail with any of the same errors as stat(2). Addi-
tionally, it may fail with the following errors:
EBUSY new_root or put_old is on the current root mount. (This error
covers the pathological case where new_root is "/".)
EINVAL new_root is not a mount point.
EINVAL put_old is not at or underneath new_root.
EINVAL The current root directory is not a mount point (because of an
earlier chroot(2)).
EINVAL The current root is on the rootfs (initial ramfs) mount; see
NOTES.
EINVAL Either the mount point at new_root, or the parent mount of that
mount point, has propagation type MS_SHARED.
EINVAL put_old is a mount point and has the propagation type MS_SHARED.
ENOTDIR
new_root or put_old is not a directory.
EPERM The calling process does not have the CAP_SYS_ADMIN capability.
STANDARDS
Linux.
HISTORY
Linux 2.3.41.
NOTES
A command-line interface for this system call is provided by
pivot_root(8).
pivot_root() allows the caller to switch to a new root filesystem while
at the same time placing the old root mount at a location under
new_root from where it can subsequently be unmounted. (The fact that
it moves all processes that have a root directory or current working
directory on the old root directory to the new root frees the old root
directory of users, allowing the old root mount to be unmounted more
easily.)
One use of pivot_root() is during system startup, when the system
mounts a temporary root filesystem (e.g., an initrd(4)), then mounts
the real root filesystem, and eventually turns the latter into the root
directory of all relevant processes and threads. A modern use is to
set up a root filesystem during the creation of a container.
The fact that pivot_root() modifies process root and current working
directories in the manner noted in DESCRIPTION is necessary in order to
prevent kernel threads from keeping the old root mount busy with their
root and current working directories, even if they never access the
filesystem in any way.
The rootfs (initial ramfs) cannot be pivot_root()ed. The recommended
method of changing the root filesystem in this case is to delete every-
thing in rootfs, overmount rootfs with the new root, attach stdin/std-
out/stderr to the new /dev/console, and exec the new init(1). Helper
programs for this process exist; see switch_root(8).
pivot_root(".", ".")
new_root and put_old may be the same directory. In particular, the
following sequence allows a pivot-root operation without needing to
create and remove a temporary directory:
chdir(new_root);
pivot_root(".", ".");
umount2(".", MNT_DETACH);
This sequence succeeds because the pivot_root() call stacks the old
root mount point on top of the new root mount point at /. At that
point, the calling process's root directory and current working direc-
tory refer to the new root mount point (new_root). During the subse-
quent umount() call, resolution of "." starts with new_root and then
moves up the list of mounts stacked at /, with the result that old root
mount point is unmounted.
Historical notes
For many years, this manual page carried the following text:
pivot_root() may or may not change the current root and the cur-
rent working directory of any processes or threads which use the
old root directory. The caller of pivot_root() must ensure that
processes with root or current working directory at the old root
operate correctly in either case. An easy way to ensure this is
to change their root and current working directory to new_root
before invoking pivot_root().
This text, written before the system call implementation was even fi-
nalized in the kernel, was probably intended to warn users at that time
that the implementation might change before final release. However,
the behavior stated in DESCRIPTION has remained consistent since this
system call was first implemented and will not change now.
EXAMPLES
The program below demonstrates the use of pivot_root() inside a mount
namespace that is created using clone(2). After pivoting to the root
directory named in the program's first command-line argument, the child
created by clone(2) then executes the program named in the remaining
command-line arguments.
We demonstrate the program by creating a directory that will serve as
the new root filesystem and placing a copy of the (statically linked)
busybox(1) executable in that directory.
$ mkdir /tmp/rootfs
$ ls -id /tmp/rootfs # Show inode number of new root directory
319459 /tmp/rootfs
$ cp $(which busybox) /tmp/rootfs
$ PS1='bbsh$ ' sudo ./pivot_root_demo /tmp/rootfs /busybox sh
bbsh$ PATH=/
bbsh$ busybox ln busybox ln
bbsh$ ln busybox echo
bbsh$ ln busybox ls
bbsh$ ls
busybox echo ln ls
bbsh$ ls -id / # Compare with inode number above
319459 /
bbsh$ echo 'hello world'
hello world
Program source
/* pivot_root_demo.c */
#define _GNU_SOURCE
#include <err.h>
#include <limits.h>
#include <sched.h>
#include <signal.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/mman.h>
#include <sys/mount.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <sys/syscall.h>
#include <sys/wait.h>
#include <unistd.h>
static int
pivot_root(const char *new_root, const char *put_old)
{
return syscall(SYS_pivot_root, new_root, put_old);
}
#define STACK_SIZE (1024 * 1024)
static int /* Startup function for cloned child */
child(void *arg)
{
char path[PATH_MAX];
char **args = arg;
char *new_root = args[0];
const char *put_old = "/oldrootfs";
/* Ensure that 'new_root' and its parent mount don't have
shared propagation (which would cause pivot_root() to
return an error), and prevent propagation of mount
events to the initial mount namespace. */
if (mount(NULL, "/", NULL, MS_REC | MS_PRIVATE, NULL) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "mount-MS_PRIVATE");
/* Ensure that 'new_root' is a mount point. */
if (mount(new_root, new_root, NULL, MS_BIND, NULL) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "mount-MS_BIND");
/* Create directory to which old root will be pivoted. */
snprintf(path, sizeof(path), "%s/%s", new_root, put_old);
if (mkdir(path, 0777) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "mkdir");
/* And pivot the root filesystem. */
if (pivot_root(new_root, path) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "pivot_root");
/* Switch the current working directory to "/". */
if (chdir("/") == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "chdir");
/* Unmount old root and remove mount point. */
if (umount2(put_old, MNT_DETACH) == -1)
perror("umount2");
if (rmdir(put_old) == -1)
perror("rmdir");
/* Execute the command specified in argv[1]... */
execv(args[1], &args[1]);
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "execv");
}
int
main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
char *stack;
/* Create a child process in a new mount namespace. */
stack = mmap(NULL, STACK_SIZE, PROT_READ | PROT_WRITE,
MAP_PRIVATE | MAP_ANONYMOUS | MAP_STACK, -1, 0);
if (stack == MAP_FAILED)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "mmap");
if (clone(child, stack + STACK_SIZE,
CLONE_NEWNS | SIGCHLD, &argv[1]) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "clone");
/* Parent falls through to here; wait for child. */
if (wait(NULL) == -1)
err(EXIT_FAILURE, "wait");
exit(EXIT_SUCCESS);
}
SEE ALSO
chdir(2), chroot(2), mount(2), stat(2), initrd(4), mount_namespaces(7),
pivot_root(8), switch_root(8)
Linux man-pages 6.7 2024-02-25 pivot_root(2)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sun Jul 12 12:36:47 CEST 2026.