Common Home Directories - Yast

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server SLES Configure-Administer
1

Hello. I have a FTP server running SLES11 SP2. The users are stored locally and we are trying to use Yast to create and manage those accounts. The server is used only for FTP and these users will never logon on another service.

Normally, we create them with the same home folder /ftp, but everytime I try to create a user Yast throws me a “the home directory is used by another user try again” message.

I am quite aware that this is not the best way to do it and by far not the safest but other circumstances involving legacy software forces me to use the shared home folder strategy.

I would like to know if I can change the behaviour of the Yast “Users and Group Administration” panel as follows:

  • allows the creation of shared directories
  • by default do not try to change the home directory permissions
  • by default do not try to create the home directory

I’ve meddled with /etc/default/useradd and other config files and didn’t found an obvious way to do this.

Thanks in advance.

2

ulzer,

It appears that in the past few days you have not received a response to your
posting. That concerns us, and has triggered this automated reply.

Has your issue been resolved? If not, you might try one of the following options:

Be sure to read the forum FAQ about what to expect in the way of responses:
http://forums.suse.com/faq.php

If this is a reply to a duplicate posting, please ignore and accept our apologies
and rest assured we will issue a stern reprimand to our posting bot.

Good luck!

Your SUSE Forums Team
http://forums.suse.com

3

Does this have to be done under yast?

#> mkdir /home/ftp
#> useradd -d /home/ftp user1 -c “FTP User” -p mypassword
#> useradd -d /home/ftp user2 -c “FTP User” -p anotherpassword
#> chmod 766 /home/ftp

Of course only one of those users can actually “own” the directory.
As you said, this isn’t a best practice.