How to align Snap's HOME with Linux?

Question

Background

When I use n3dr, it looks by default in the home folder for a .n3dr.yaml file. When a snap package is created, the tool complains that it cannot find the file. It turned out that snap has an other definition regarding $HOME.

$HOME on linux:

~/user, i.e. /home/user

snap:

INFO[0000] Home folder: '/home/user/snap/n3dr/x1'

Aim

To prevent that users have to create a n3dr.yaml file in another home directory, the question is whether it is possible to overwrite the Snap's $HOME variable to ensure that it is identical to the Linux' $HOME default.

How to align this? I.e.:

INFO[0000] Home folder: '/home/user'

instead of:

INFO[0000] Home folder: '/home/user/snap/n3dr/x1'

Answer 1

From the snapcraft.io web site:

HOME This environment variable is re-written by snapd so that each snap appears to have a dedicated home directory that is a subdirectory of the real home directory.

Perhaps you can get where you want by making n3dr more snap-aware, or by creating a sym-link from the ~user/.n3dr.yaml to the snapd home for n3dr.

ln -sf /home/user/snap/n3dr/x1/.n3dr.yaml /home/user