home directory problems with Fedora 8

[Tony Molloy]

On Thursday 06 December 2007 17:49, Matthew Gillen wrote:
> Chris Howard wrote:
> > I have previously existing home directories under /u01/home.
> > I did this because upgrading from FC6 to Fedora 7 caused me trouble
> > and I want to avoid having to recreate my home directory.  So I copied
> > the whole system into /u01 before doing a fresh Fedora 8 install.  I
> > do not have a separate home-only partition.
> >
> > SELinux prevents me from making a symbolic link like this:
> >
> > /home--> /u01/home  or like this
> >
> > /home/chris--> /u01/home/chris.
>
> I wouldn't do symlinks like that unless you have some strange reason to. 
> Just have /etc/passwd point to the actual directories under /u01/home.
>
> > If I setup a dummy user with home at /home/chris, then
> > edit /etc/passwd to change the home to /u01/home/chris... that doesn't
> > work either.
> >
> > nor if I create a new user like so:
> >
> > useradd -d /u01/home/pete  pete
> >
> > Is there something magic about the string '/home' ?
> > that keeps me from creating home directories anywhere else?
> >
> > I'd really love to keep from smashing /home on every OS reload.
> >
> > For now I have SELinux in Permissive mode so I can at least use the
> > system.
>
> Here's how I /think/ it works:
> a) If you've got an empty /u01/home, and you want to add new users, do
> this: Set the type of /u01/home to home_root_t:
>   chcon -t home_root_t /u01/home
> and then useradd -d /u01/home/pete will do the right thing.
>
> b) Supposing you already have some use home dirs there (ie the homeidrs in
> /etc/passwd point to /u01/home/*), I think you can just run 'genhomedircon'
> and then run:
>  restorcon -R -v /u01/home
>
> In the case of (b), it doesn't hurt to do the chcon operation first, but I
> don't think it's necessary.
>
> (note: I'm not an expert myself, but if these steps don't work for you,
> they should at least point you in the right direction).
>
> HTH,
> Matt
>
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> fedora-selinux-list at redhat.com
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I had similar problems after a fresh install of F8 last week messed up 
my /users directory. After an off-list discussion with Daniel Walsh he traced 
it to a problem in libsemanage and released a new libsemanage to F8-testing
libsemanage-2.0.12-2.fc8.

Here is a snippet from his e-mail

There is a bug in libsemanage that is preventing proper labeling.  I
have just released  libsemanage-2.0.12-2.fc8 to fedora-testing.

If you install this package, you can execute

#semodule -B
#restorecon -R -v /users
and it should clean up the labeling.

You can check what semodule and restorecon do in the man pages.
 
Hope this helps,

Tony