fakechroot provides a fake chroot environment to programs. A fake chroot allows you to run programs which require root privileges on an unprivileged user account. For example, you can create a Debian bootstrap or a development environment and build packages inside a chroot'ed system using a standard non-root user account. You can then use the apt-get command to install other packages without root privileges.
| Tags | Systems Administration |
|---|---|
| Licenses | LGPL |
| Operating Systems | POSIX Other Linux GNU/Hurd |
| Implementation | C |
Recent releases


Release Notes: The source code was refactored: all functions were moved to separated files. The opendir(3) function is compiled only if it doesn’t call other functions internally. It fixes opendir(3), fts_open(3), and ftw(3) functions. The fts_*(3) functions were reimplemented based on the OpenBSD source. The __opendir2(3) function was reimplemented based on the FreeBSD source. Fixes were made for the older GNU C library.


Release Notes: New functions were made for the execlp(3), statfs(2), and statvfs(2) functions. Support for GNU/kFreeBSD was improved.


Release Notes: Fixes were made for the getpeername(2) and getsockname(2) functions: the host 127.0.0.1 command is working. Fixes were made for the canonicalize_file_name(3) function: the man-db command is working. The new environment variable FAKECHROOT_AF_UNIX_PATH defines an optional prefix for Unix sockets. Better support for FreeBSD.


Release Notes: This release fixes the lstat(2), readlink(2), and chroot(2) functions. New functions were added: utimensat(2), linkat(2), mknodat(2), mkfifoat(2), readlinkat(2), symlinkat(2), popen(3), and system(3). Compatibility was improved for open(2) and scandir(3) functions on the latest GNU libc. A new FAKECHROOT_CMD_SUBST environment variable handles a list of substituted commands. New scripts for fake ldd and ldconfig are installed.


Release Notes: Fixes were made for the getpeername(2), getsockname(2), execve(2), chroot(2), and mktemp(2) functions. New functions were added: futimesat(2), bindtextdomain(3), and inotify_add_watch(2). The "make check" command now works as expected.