I've tried this in the past with zero success. How do I change the /home/USER
directory for a user, when I change their username, and how do I update their username without causing massive breakage?
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Your question is not clear - "retaining Data structure" would imply to not rename anything, but in the text you state it differently - please clarify.– guntbertApr 19, 2013 at 20:45
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1 Answer
If you change only the username (presumably by editing /etc/passwd
, /etc/shadow
, and /etc/group
), then simply doing mv /home/USER /home/NEWUSER
as root should be enough, assuming you also changed the directory in /etc/passwd
which is used as the home for that user.
If the UID (and or GID) was also changed, you'll need to run chmod -R NEWUSER.NEWGROUP /home/NEWUSER
as well.
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I've never gotten username changes to work properly... so basically what you're saying is i edit
/etc/passwd
,/etc/shadow
, and/etc/group
to do the username changes... and then move the home directory as root? Wouldn't i have tousermod
so that the home directory is recognized in the new path?– Thomas Ward ♦Apr 19, 2013 at 18:15 -
How were you doing the username change? You can use
usermod
to change the home directory path, instead, but if you're already editing/etc/passwd
to change the username, it's faster to just edit it there.– dobeyApr 19, 2013 at 18:27 -
dobey, the point of this question in a nutshell was to figure out the correct method of changing the user while retaining data structure. I might've missed a step or two when I tried a while ago, but I'll take another stab with a test user (so as to make sure I don't break my ACTUAL user)– Thomas Ward ♦Apr 19, 2013 at 18:29