moving /home

[Jeff Vian]

On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 18:17 +0530, Anil Kumar Sharma wrote:
> Pl, allow me to clarify, in fact I was doubtful while writing it but
> instead dashed -
> There is nothing like /dev/sda1/home     I thought, it would
> be obvious (my mistake), actual writeup should have been
> 
The meaning was understood (by me at least).

> "U shifted them to the root of /dev/sda1 rather than to folder /home
> in /dev/sda1"
>  
> Please, please, correct me if I am wrong, in plain one word (capital
> allowed) and more - 

> {
> Will it work as 'home" from the root of /dev/sda1 when mounted in
> fstab and treated (attempted to be) as "home" for Linux purpose. 
> U C, a conflict here itself, there cannot be two line with entries
> of / in fstab for second field, (fs_file).
There is your problem.
Whatever is in the root of a filesystem (/dev/sda1 in this case) becomes
the contents of the mount point.  If you create a folder called home
on /dev/sda1 then mount /dev/sda1 on /home you will now have a path such
as /home/home/username and that will not work for the default
configuration of a users home directory tree.

> Also, home is a reserved name (~variable?) like usr etc proc bin "/"
> sys boot var ... ... ; and lot of things default to them.
> Suppose I want to announce contents in folder named pqrs as the
> "home", I mount it and edit fstab, it still is not "home". What makes
> it home is this reserved name and it can be placed anywhere in file
> system, mounted as /../../../home (most common place being /home of a
> suitable partition), announce it in fstab and be used for all the
> intended defaults of Linux.
> }
That is not correct; fstab has nothing at all to do with designating a
users home directory.  

Also, 'home' is not a reserved word.  It's usage to identify the
directory tree containing users home directories is common but not
written in stone anywhere.  Not too long ago I was sysadmin for a
startup ISP and we used /users as the beginning of the users directory
tree.

In fact, users home directories may be placed anywhere the administrator
chooses; and different users are not required to even be in the same
tree (Although usually kept there for ease of administration).  The
location of a given users home directory is seen in /etc/passwd, and
that is the only place it is designated.  It can be changed at any time
by making a simple change to /etc/passwd and the user then logs in with
the new home directory. 

In the case of Claude and moving his home directory to a new partition
he has 2 possible choices, either of which will work but have slightly
different paths to reach the goal.
   First (and simplest) choice is to move the entire contents of /home
to his new partition and then mount the new partition as /home.  This is
what you were trying to do but slightly flawed in the process.
   Second choice would be to copy the contents of his old /home to the
new partition and mount the new partition at a location of his choice,
then modify /etc/passwd for each user to point to the new location. 


>  
> PS: Please, don't bring out swords, we are playing with nails! and
> learning something; also lets laugh at this little joke - Haha..haha
> - just to chill , lets play folks..
>  
I agree, but lets not lead someone astray with invalid concepts and bad
data.

> On 12/5/05, Claude Jones <claude_jones at levitjames.com> wrote: 
>         On Mon December 5 2005 1:57 am, Jeff Vian wrote:
>         > On Mon, 2005-12-05 at 09:15 +0530, Anil Kumar Sharma wrote: 
>         > > Hello CJ,
>         > > After my last post I had to dash to bed - it was getting
>         close to
>         > > early morning Monday!
>         > > I think I spelled correctly about shifting your files. But
>         I am afraid 
>         > > U shifted them to the root of /dev/sda1 rather then than
>         > > to /dev/sda1/home.
>         >
>         > He does NOT want them at /dev/sda1/home, but does want them
>         at the root
>         > of /dev/sda1
>         > /dev/sda1 will be mounted at /home so the current contents
>         of /home MUST 
>         > be at the root of /dev/sda1
>         
>         I think you just struck the missing conceptual nail on the
>         head! See later in
>         the thread if curious....
>         
> -- 
> Anil Kumar Shrama 
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