Root directory

Unix-like systems

Unix abstracts the nature of this tree hierarchy entirely and in Unix and Unix-like systems the root directory is denoted by the / (slash) sign. Though the root directory is conventionally referred to as /, the directory entry itself has no name – its path is the "empty" part before the initial directory separator character (/). All file system entries, including mounted file systems are "branches" of this root.

chroot

In UNIX-like operating systems, each process has its own idea of what the root directory is. For most processes this is the same as the system's actual root directory, but it can be changed by calling the chroot system call. This is typically done to create a secluded environment to run software that requires legacy libraries and sometimes to simplify software installation and debugging. Chroot is not meant to be used for enhanced security as the processes inside can break out.

Super-root

Some Unix systems support a directory below the root directory. Normally, "/.." points back to the same inode as "/", however, under MUNIX, this can be changed to point to a super-root directory, where remote trees can be mounted. If, for example, two workstations "pcs2a" and "pcs2b" were connected via "connectnodes" and "uunite" startup script, "/../pcs2b" could be used to access the root directory of "pcs2b" from "pcs2a".