Manpages - switch_root.8

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

switch_root [*-hV*]

switch_root newroot init [/arg/…]

switch_root moves already mounted /proc, /dev, /sys and /run 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.

-h, –help

Display help text and exit.

-V, –version

Display version information and exit.

switch_root returns 0 on success and 1 on failure.

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

*chroot*(2), *init*(8), *mkinitrd*(8), *mount*(8)

For bug reports, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/karelzak/util-linux/issues.

The switch_root command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.