how to get username use another home directory

Globe Trotter itsme_410 at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 16 18:02:09 UTC 2009


> I'm curious, why not just have /home be on a different
> partition?
> That seems more elegant to me (and would work better with
> SELinux as
> well, though you might not care if you disable SELinux or
> run in
> permissive mode :).

Thanks! I wonder that myself, sometimes, but it is for historical reasons. In the days that there was no rpms, I used to keep locally installed programs there and did not want it wiped out with every new tinkering. I still use some of them, but all options are set to use /usr/local/trotter, etc.  
 
> > Previously, I would add skip the create user step and
> log in as root
> > and then create user with directory using
> system-config-users.
> > However, this is apparently no longer allowed, and I
> am required to
> > create an user. How do I get this user to have its
> "home" in
> > /usr/local/trotter? I guess one way out is to create a
> fake user and
> > then go in, use system-config-users and then delete
> the fake user.
> > Is there a more elegant way?
> 
> This is the sort of task I'd do from a text console
> (but then, I say
> that sort of thing a lot ;).  If you create the user
> trotter at first
> boot, use CTRL-ALT-F2 at the login screen to get to a
> console.  Then
> login as root and use something like:
> 
>     # usermod -m --home /usr/local/trotter trotter
> 
> The -m option moves the current home dir to the new dir. 
> Obviously,
> you don't want trotter logged in when you do this.

Thanks! However, does it not wipe out the /usr/local/trotter directory. I just want to get rid of the /home/trotter and make everything point to /usr/local/trotter directory (which exists from an earlier installation).

I haven't actually tried this, but am just wondering.

Isn't it is a better option to allow for a home directory to be chosen at installation? I have never figured out why Fedora does not allow this choice (with a default).

Trotter




      




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