Command to change the default home directory of a user

Question

I would like to know whether there is any simple shell command to change the user home directory in Linux Unix  one similar to chsh which changes the default login shell of an existing valid user  without touching the  etc passwd file  Thanks

User · Answer

From Linux Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User:

Simply open this file using a text editor, type:
vi /etc/default/useradd
The default home directory defined by HOME variable, find line that read as follows:
HOME=/home
Replace with:
HOME=/iscsi/user
Save and close the file. Now you can add user using regular useradd command:
# useradd vivek
# passwd vivek
Verify user information:
# finger vivek

User · Answer

In case other readers look for information on the adduser command   Edit  etc adduser conf  Set DHOME variable

User · Answer

You can do it with   etc passwd  Edit the user home directory and then move the required files and directories to it  cp mv -r  home  user  bash   home newdir   bash profile  ssh    Set the correct permission chmod -R  user  user  home newdir  bash

User · Answer

usermod -m -d  newhome username

User · Answer

Ibrahim s comment on the other answer is the correct way to alter an existing user s home directory    Change the user s home directory   usermod -d  newhome username username   usermod is the command to edit an existing user   -d  abbreviation for --home  will change the user s home directory    Change the user s home directory   Move the contents of the user s current directory   usermod -m -d  newhome username username   -m  abbreviation for --move-home  will move the content from the user s current directory to the new directory

User · Answer

The accepted answer is faulty  since the contents from the initial user folder are not moved using it   I am going to add another answer to correct it   sudo usermod -d  newhome username -m username   You don t need to create the folder with username and this will also move your files from the initial user folder to  newhome username folder

User · Answer

Found out that this breaks some applications  the better way to do it is   In addition to symlink  on more recent distros and filesystems  as root you can also use bind-mount   mkdir  home username  mount --bind --verbose  extra-home username  home username   This is useful for allowing access  through  the  home directory to subdirs via daemons that are otherwise configured to avoid pathing through symlinks  apache  ftpd  etc     You have to remember  or init script  to bind upon restarts  of course   An example init script in  etc fstab is   extra-home username  home username none defaults bind 0 0

[linux] Command to change the default home directory of a user

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