[SLUG] Re: Follow-up to: Problem accessing User directories in /home

[lukekendall]

On  5 Mar, Bill wrote:
  Hi Luke,
  
  Thanks for the reply.
  
  Just prior to receiving it I booted Mandrake into runlevel 3 and determined 
  that I could log into my user account that way, and access the contents of 
  my home directory, so the problem is not the Symlink.

It's only a problem from runlevel 5?  Weird!  Yes, if you can get to
/home/bill from runlevel 3, the problem can't be with the symlink -
although ...

  By the way, df -k /home shows the following:-
  
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# df -k /home
  Filesystem   1K-blocks  Used Available Use% Mounted on
  /dev/hda5  5542276   3212340   2048400  62% /

Well, that's interesting, since it says that /home is on the root
partition (/dev/hda5), not the /dev/hda7 partition (/mnt/hda7) as you
thought.

  I tried creating a new user account, but received the message :-
  
  cannot lock user lib, file /etc/ptmp or /etc/gtmp exist
  
  I renamed these files to old and could then create a new user.
  
  On rebooting, the new user didn't show in kdm, nor would kdm accept the new 
  user name and password - ditto for trying to login to Gnome etc.

You should definitely don't need to reboot to activate a new user!

  Tried using UserDrake to check new user account, only to once again receive 
  the above message re ptmp/gtmp.
  
  
  Seems as though the problem may be with the user lib, whatever that is.

I can't say I understand that.

  Nope. Mandrake installed first, and /home created on separate partition as 
  part of install.

Okay; and it created it just as a directory within /, not using
/dev/hda7.

luke

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[SLUG] Re: Follow-up to: Problem accessing User directories in /home

[lukekendall]

On  4 Mar, Bill wrote:
  Hi Luke,
  
  Thanks for the reply. Info as requested hereunder:-
  
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# cat /etc/fstab
  none   /proc   proc   defaults0 0
  none   /dev/ptsdevpts mode=0622   0 0
  /dev/fd0   /mnt/auto/floppy auto   user,noauto,exec,umask=0000 0
  #
  /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 ext3 noauto,users,exec 0 0  # Knoppix partition
  #
  /dev/hda5 / ext3 defaults  1 1  # Mdk 9.0 boot 
  partition
  #
  /dev/hda6 none swap defaults 0 0# Swap for both Mdk 
  9.0 and Knoppix
  #
  /dev/hda7 /mnt/hda7 ext3 auto,users,exec 0 0 #Mdk 9.0 Home 
  partition
  #
  /dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 vfat noauto,users,exec 0 0  # XP partition
  #
  /dev/hdb5 /mnt/hdb5 ntfs noauto,users,exec 0 0  # XP data
  #
  /dev/hdd1 /mnt/hdd1 ntfs noauto,users,exec 0 0  #XP data

That all looks good.

  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# ls -ld /home
  drwxr-xr-x2 root root 4096 Feb 26 16:04 /home/

Likewise.  I also assume that a df -k /home would show that /home is on
the root / (/dev/hda5) partition.

  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# ls -ld /home/bill
  ls: /home/bill: No such file or directory
  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]#
  
  (Appears that problem is with Symlink???)

I think so, yes.

  [EMAIL PROTECTED] root]# mount
  /dev/hda5 on / type ext3 (rw)
  none on /proc type proc (rw)
  none on /proc/bus/usb type usbdevfs (rw)
  none on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,mode=0622)
  /dev/hda7 on /mnt/hda7 type ext3 (rw,nosuid,nodev)
  /dev/hdb1 on /mnt/hdb1 type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev)

I notice that you don't mount the Knoppix root partition by default,
which makes sense (avoids the risk of accidental damage).

Similarly, when you boot Knoppix, I expect that its /etc/fstab doesn't
mount the Mandrake root partition, either.

If you'd set up the /home symlink under Knoppix, that would explain
things - the symlink would only be visible under Knoppix.

So the solution may therefore be as simple as a:

# cd /
# mv home home.saved# Let's be careful
# ln -s /mnt/hda7 /home

Let me know how that works out.

luke

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