Chroot

chroot
Original author(s)Bill Joy, AT&T Bell Laboratories
Developer(s)Various open-source and commercial developers
Initial release1979; 45 years ago (1979)
Operating systemUnix, Unix-like, Plan 9, Inferno
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCommand

chroot is an operation on Unix and Unix-like operating systems that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot name (and therefore normally cannot access) files outside the designated directory tree. The term "chroot" may refer to the chroot(2) system call or the chroot(8) wrapper program. The modified environment is called a chroot jail.

Chroot: from Gentoo to Ubuntu