[codetrotter]

chroot is a system call that assigns a limited view of the file system to a process. In particular it makes it so that the specific directory will appear as the top level directory to the process.

Some people like to run for example FTP servers in a chroot so that users have access only to a specific directory and its subdirectories, rather than being able to browse other files on the system.

FreeBSD also has a technology called jails which is what you’d rather use for containerization.

Anyway, previously you had to be root (the Unix admin user) in order to use chroot. FreeBSD now implementing unprivileged chroot means that regular users are able to run processes in chroot as well.

So for example if you were a regular user on a system, you can now create a sub directory in your home directory and run an FTP demon chrooted to that directory and bound to an unprivileged port, and then you can give someone else FTP access to that directory without them being able to see the other files in your home directory, keeping your private data private from them.