Where should the user home directory's go !? /home/$username !?

TrueNAS General
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After migration to new hardware, I discovered that admin ssh access was not possible any more. So I went to the GUI to edit the admin’s authorization settings. The public key was gone so I tried to upload the key again. Not possible …

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As you can see I used /home/$username for home directory’s before what is as far as I know the Ubuntu default

So that seems NOT OK in TrueNas terms. So lets test what is OK. To do that I did create a new user ^testuser^ (from the GUI off course). With a public key off course and … same problem even that ^standard home directory^ is not writable …. !!!???

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So no idea what to think about this !

Note that I did recreate the TrueNas boot-pool yesterday by:

  1. installing the latest iso on a new ssd followed by
  2. a restore of the laterst config file

So where to create the user directory’s

  • the truenas default seems to be /var/empty !!!??
  • ubuntu /linux seems to be /home/%username
  • I did use /mnt//home/%username in the past

However I think the best option would be something on the boot-pool not conflicting with boot-pool snapshots and if possible in line with normal linux

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Correct. Most users don’t need a home directory. TrueNAS is a NAS operating system, so most people are probably going to use SMB/NFS - those sharing protocols do not require a home directory. You really only need a home directory if you want SSH/SFTP access.

It is up to you to decide on where to store data. Storing data on the boot-pool is bad if the data is important. Data on the boot-pool is not backed up. So if you want durable user homes you want to create a dataset for that purpose on one of your non-boot pools. If you create a dataset homes in your pool tank then your home directory path for the user testuser would be /mnt/tank/homes/testuser.

2 Likes
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First: Sorry for the late response :slight_smile:

I was really surprised with the reaction above. For reason, that IMHO sharing your home directory is …. IMHO not done and very strange.

However in my option all users should have a home directory. Some will use it more than others agreed. If you have private files a private key as example they or shell settings or what ever personal/private other file that should be there. I really regard it as obscure not to have a home directory even if that is under circumstances empty

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The user only needs a home directory if they require shell access. And what I mean with home directory is the regular unix home directory, the one that is configured in the user settings.

You can still have one personal folder per user if you want. That is a very common setup. I personally have a folder per user located at /mnt/tank/homes/<username> which users can access via SMB. You can call those home directories, but they are not home directories in the unix sense. The unix home directory is /var/empty for all users that don’t need shell access.

I do know of setups where all users get shell access. But from a security perspective there are a ton of issues with giving users shell access.

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Yep home directory is linux home directory. No doubt about that. And not every user should have shell / api access we agree on that as well.