Linux change user homedir

Change Home Directory in Linux

Change the home directory of a Linux user with a simple usermod command. While creating a user if you didn’t specify any –home parameter Linux assumes the home directory of the user to be /home/username even if you did specify you can later change it to something else according to your needs. Apart from changing the home directory using the usermod command you’ll have to assign proper ownership and permissions to the new folder. You can also change the home directory by editing the /etc/passwd file. I’ll outline both the steps here.

Change the home directory using usermod

This method is for command line warriors. Before you use the usermod command the new home directory should be created, ownership should be assigned to the new user and the folder should be chmoded correctly so that no one else can access it. Run the following commands to do it.
mkdir /home/new_home_directory
chown username:username /home/new_home_directory
chmod 700 /home/new_home_directory
usermod —home /home/new_home_directory username

Change the home directory by editing /etc/passwd

Alternatively you can also edit the /etc/passwd to change the home directory. But you should be careful not to edit anything else. Before editing this file it is always better to create the new home directory and assign proper permissions and ownership to it. Execute the following commands.
mkdir /home/new_home_directory
chown username:username /home/new_home_directory
chmod 700 /home/new_home_directory

Open the /etc/passwd file using a text editor and locate the line containing the required username it should look something like this
username:x:500:500::/home/username:/bin/bash

change it to
username:x:500:500::/home/new_home_directory:/bin/bash

Save the file.

Finally copy all the old content to the new home directory
cp -f /home/username/* /home/new_home_dir/

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How to rename Linux users and their home directory

Overview

In this tutorial, you will learn how to a rename a user in CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions. More than that, you will also learn how to rename thier home directory, primary group, and change their UID.

Renaming Users in Linux

Linux provides a tool named usermod specifically for making modifications to user accounts. In this case we are using it to rename a user account, which is done using the -l flag.

For example, to rename a user named student1 to johndoe, you would run the usermod command as follows.

The -l flag will only change the user’s name. All other things attached to the user will remain unaffected, such as home directory. and UID.

Changing a User’s Home Directory in Linux

After renaming a user it may make sense to change their home directory, too. Otherwise, it would cause a lot of confusion trying to explain why johndoe ‘s home directory is /home/student .

To change the user’s home directory we once again use the usermod command. However, this time we need to perform to actions: change the home directory to a new path, and move the contents from the old path into the new path.

We set the new home directory path using the -d or —home flag with the path to the new directory. We must also use the -m flag to copy the contents of the old home directory into the new one.

Renaming a User’s Group

Every user on a Linux system is created with a group of the same name. When we change the name of a user their group name is left untouched. It’s a good idea to also change the user’s primary group name as well.

To change a user’s primary group name we use the groupmod command with the -n flag. We must supply the old name and a new name.

For example, to rename the newly renamed user johndoe ‘s primary group to johndoe from student1 , we would run the following command.

Changing a User’s UID

A little more rare than renaming a user or changing their home directory is changing their UID. A User’s UID is their unique ID on a Linux system. When we assign permissions to file and directories, we use their UID. Processes started by a user are also executed using a user’s UID.

To change a user’s ID we use the usermod command with the -u flag, followed by a new, unique integer.

For example, to set johndoes UID to 5001, we would run the following usermod command.

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Linux Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User

B y default base directory for the system user is set to /home directory. I’d like to add user to /iscsi/home/$ directory instead of the default /home. How do I force useradd command to add user to /iscsi/home under CentOS / RHEL / Fedora Linux server?

Default values for account creation defined in /etc/default/useradd file under CentOS / RHEL / Fedora / Debian / Ubuntu and other Linux distros. 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
Output:

How Do I Change Existing User’s Home Directory?

You need to use the usermod command to set the user’s new login directory. The syntax is as follows:

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1. -d dirnanme : Path to new login (home) directory.
2. -m : The contents of the current home directory will be moved to the new home directory, which is created if it does not already exist.

In this example set the user’s new login directory to /users/v/vivek from /home/vivek, enter:
# usermod -m -d /users/v/vivek vivek

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Comments on this entry are closed.

or specify the home with -d in useradd command

Nice…info…but it doesnt work ;_( it still gives same error as before changeing in /etc/default/usradd

]# useradd -d /root/lvm/ mas
useradd: warning: the home directory already exists.
Not copying any file from skel directory into it.

Hi All,
Anyone who can teach me the solution for this problem:

I add a user jayabellon using this command:
useradd -u 888 -g oinstall -G dba -d /home/jayabellon -r jayabellon

i forgot to create home directory when I log-In so it prompts me cannot go to that directory.

I deleted the user and retry to create again.

But still, when I log-In, this is what it looks like:
-bash-3.00$

I am expecting it to be
[user@hostname]$

this is my entry in /etc/passwd:
jayabellon:x:888:501:jayabellon:/home/jayabellon:/bin/bash

actually, i am only working in a test server. Nothing much critical on this one.
It’s just that its my first time to create user using command line, because i usually do it in GUI based.

Even I have the same problem. If you get any solution please mail me. One solution I can give that re-install the operating system,even I did the same.

-bash-3.00$ finger jayabellon
Login: jayabellon Name: jayabellon
Directory: /home/jayabellon Shell: /bin/bash
Never logged in.
No mail.
No Plan.

Pass -m option to useradd command to create users home dir.

it’s in man page also.

found that it’s faster to create user in command line rather than using GUI Administration tool.

Any chance you can provide a similar command for Oracle SQL?

Thanks. I’ve been wondering how to change the default home directory for a while now. Glad I found this to explain how.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.

This is just nonsense of a blog, when the same thing can be achieved with usermod command with -d option to change the home directory.

It’s really not “nonsense of a blog.” The whole point is so that it is a default, so you DON’T have to do the -d option every time. Why make things harder on yourself? Set all the defaults in the config files, and then just useradd and be done with it.

home directory already exits.
not copying any file from skel directory into it
when i login to oracle user it show me
-bash-3.00$

Thanks a lot you saved me.. since the syntax was so complicated..

what i did wrong was while trying to change existing username to new one..

I was logged as root since it’s not good to change username while being logged under it.. everything went smooth i even appended the groups to my new user but since i didn’t specify the path to the new home directory after -dm all of the old folder was moved by default to the root folder instead of home since i was logged as root.. so be careful guys to specify path or just log into any other user you have that has folder in home$ or i guess excute the command in the target folder .. here what i used to change username:

usermod -dm -Ga ,sudo -l

to understand this go to the man page..

sorry but trying to add syntax with but gets deleted.

add this to first comment

forgot to mention that combining options letters won’t work which i guess is weird since it;s used in tar -vzf … but i guess some commands don’t agree.. thanks again i’ve just moved my whole folders to the destination.. u r the best not even the man instructions since those are stupid for not giving no examples.. thanks again guys..

Thanks for the article.
When changing the default home dir in /etc/default/useradd, I suggest to change it in /etc/adduser.conf as well (variable DHOME) – otherwise users added by the command ‘adduser’ will have the wrong/old home still.
Regards

on rhel 5 I had to change the command slightly

usermod -d /users/v/vivek -m vivek

this applies to centos 5 as well

it’s working both combination of -m -d options

it’s working both combination of -m -d options
usermod -m -d

I tried too many times but it’s telling me that my user is used by a process 3284

I created a user using adduser :
useradd sacadmin
and added it to a group alcatel.
Now when I do su sacadmin it logs in, but there is no directory /sacadmin in /users.

I need a directory in users for this user and a bin in it like /users/sscadmin/bin

can we Modify Oracle_Base directory to other new directory after installation. Plz help me

change home directory in user1
cmd
#usermod -m -d /backup user1

usermod: user user1 is currently logged in
what is solve

Logout users1. Or kill user1 session:
pkill -KILL -u user1

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How to rename user in Linux (also rename group & home directory)

We might have come across a situation where we might want to rename user in Linux system, for whatever reasons. We can easily rename user in Linux & also we can rename the home directory or its UID as well.

In this short tutorial, we will be discussing these things only. Let’s start by renaming user in Linux first,

Rename user in Linux

For renaming user in Linux systems, we will use ‘usermod’ command. Syntax for the command is,

$ usermod -l new_username old_username

$ sudo usermod -l susan dan

This will only change the username & everything else, like group, home directory, UID will remain same.

Note:- You should need to logged out from the account you are trying to rename. You can also kill all the processes running for that user, to do so execute the following command,

$ sudo pkill -u dan

$ sudo pkill -9 -u dan

Renaming Home directory

For renaming home directory to correspond to the renamed user, we use ‘-d’ option with ‘usermod’ command.,

$ sudo usermod -d /home/susan -m susan

Changing UID for the user

To change the UID of the user , execute the following command,

$ sudo usermod -u 2000 susan

where ‘2000’ is the new UID for user.

Renaming the group

To rename the group from ‘dan’ to ‘susan‘, we will use ‘groupmod’ command. Use the following command to rename the group,

$ groupmod -n susan dan

To use a name that’s already in use but you want to use it anyway, command would be,

$ groupmod -o -n susan dan

Once we have made the required changes, we can than check the changes made using the ‘id’ command,

$ id susan

With this we end this tutorial on how to rename user in Linux. Please let us know if you have any question or any issue or if you do have any suggestion, please do let us know that as well.

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