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 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 avail-
       able from ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.



util-linux			   June 2009			SWITCH_ROOT(8)