and i just determined it is a libc bug. the code below will segfault (must be run as root for chroot to work). i'll try to submit to redhat... #include <sys/types.h> #include <pwd.h> main() { struct passwd *p; chroot("/tmp"); chdir("/"); p = getpwuid(666); if (p) { printf("%s\n", p->pw_name); } exit(0); }