Re: change home directory name

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Author: Michael Havens
Date:  
To: michael, Main PLUG discussion list
Subject: Re: change home directory name
boy.... I nervously entered the command into the terminal and pressed enter
expecting it to take at least a minute. Was I surprised when it completed
in 3 seconds!


yeah Michael.... this is making me very uncomfortable. I'll live with the
new user name and the old directory name. You know, I don't know why it ran
out of space! I have .33GB of free space after the copy. What is that?
330MB? It shouldn't of run out of room!

On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 12:19 AM, Michael Havens <> wrote:

> Ahhh shucks.... you guys already told me that was going to be a problem
> and you gave me the solution I was asking for. Good thing I looked through
> the posts again. Thanks..... it looks like I'm not as smart as I thought I
> was. Me and my acursed memory!
>
>
> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 11:57 PM, Michael Havens <> wrote:
>
>> lovely..... because it ran out of space my old user can't log in to the
>> gui. I try logging in to a terminal as <new user> and it says:
>>
>> root@Michaels-PC:~# su bmike2
>> To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
>> See "man sudo_root" for details.
>> bash: bmike2/.bashrc: Permission denied
>> bmike2@Michaels-PC:/root$
>>
>> I just looked at /home and it seems that what happened is it changed the
>> user name and barfed when it was coopying the files and so it left me with
>> the new user name and the old directory. So please..... how do I associate
>> the new user name with the old directory? Would I still use usermod
>> ..... Well, I figured I didn't have anything to lose by trying it and I
>> found out that didn't work. Because the user was changed while the previous
>> command was in process user bmike1 doesn't exist.... I bet I know what's
>> going on!everything is owned by user bmike1 (who doesn't exist anymore) so
>> when bmike2 tried to access .bashrc it said 'nope'. So I think I figured
>> out the problem! (this is exciting)(I'll be a regular computer wizard
>> soon!) If what I think is the problem is is correct the solution would be
>> 'find -r /home/bmike1 * | chown bmike2'. Would this work? Are there
>> programs not owned by the user in it's directory? What about them (if there
>> are)?
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Michael Havens <> wrote:
>>
>>> Well, I guess I don't really need to change the directory's name. So I
>>> suppose just
>>>
>>> 'usermod -l <newuser> <old user>'
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Michael Butash <>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Add some? :)
>>>>
>>>> Actually it sounds like it's "copying, then deleting" (safe) vs.
>>>> "moving", so if you're short diskspace, you'll need to just move it, change
>>>> your /etc/passwd and group file for the user/uid, and chown -r the
>>>> directory to the new username/uid.
>>>>
>>>> Matrix's method presumes you have temp disk space, but looks like
>>>> you're doing it the hard way manipulating ownerships and such from root
>>>> user.
>>>>
>>>> -mb
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 04/02/2012 02:09 PM, Michael Havens wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> hmmmmm. It just ran out of disk space. Any suggestions on what I can do
>>>>> about that?
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:58 PM, Michael Havens <
>>>>> <mailto:bmike1@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>    thanks for explainig the rationale of putting the old user name
>>>>> last.

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>    On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Matrix Mole <
>>>>>    <mailto:matrixm@gmail.com>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>        If the account you are trying to change is your current account,
>>>>>        it may be easier to login as root to make the changes (just to
>>>>>        prevent any existing programs in memory trying to use the old
>>>>>        username/directory). I'd also use the command as follows:

>>>>>
>>>>>        usermod -l <newuser> -md <newuser> <olduser>

>>>>>
>>>>>        since an existing username needs to be at the end (so the
>>>>>        command knows what user account to modify).

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>        On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:26 PM, Michael Havens <
>>>>> 
>>>>>        <mailto:bmike1@gmail.com>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>            I'll use usermod then. Thanks for letting me know about it.
>>>>>            so I think this is the proper syntax. Will this work?

>>>>>
>>>>>               sudo usermod -l <olduser> <newuser> -dm <newuser>

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>            On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:13 PM, Matrix Mole
>>>>>            < <mailto:matrixm@gmail.com>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>                If you are changing your username, there is flags to the
>>>>>                usermod command that can help change the home directory.
>>>>>                The -d flag to usermod will update /etc/passwd with the
>>>>>                users home directory, and the -m flag will move the old
>>>>>                directory to the new name. I'm pretty sure that usermod
>>>>>                will also take care of the ownership issues as well.
>>>>>                Check 'man usermod' for more details on this. If you
>>>>>                don't use the usermod command, then there is also the
>>>>>                ownership issue to consider with changing home
>>>>>                directory. The chown command can help make sure the
>>>>>                directory is owned by the correct user with 'chown -R
>>>>>                {username} [homedir]' command.

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 1:00 PM, Michael Havens
>>>>>                < <mailto:bmike1@gmail.com>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>                    Thanks. Is that the only thing I have to worry
>>>>> about?

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                    On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Patricia Wilson
>>>>>                    <
>>>>>                    <mailto:wilson.pr.gm@gmail.com**>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>                        Note that your home directory name appears in
>>>>>                        the /etc/passwd file so the system knows where
>>>>>                        you "live" when you login. If you change the
>>>>>                        name of that directory you need to change your
>>>>>                        entry in the passwd file to match.

>>>>>
>>>>>                        On Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:17 PM, Michael Havens
>>>>>                        < <mailto:bmike1@gmail.com>>
>>>>> wrote:

>>>>>
>>>>>                            How would I accomplish this? Is it as easy
>>>>>                            as just moving the old name to the new name;
>>>>>                            or should I do a 'find -r / <old
>>>>>                            directory>|mv - <newdirectory'?

>>>>>
>>>>>                            --
>>>>>                            :-)~MIKE~(-:

>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>                        --
>>>>>                        Sent from my super hot-shot dual core 64 bit
>>>>>                        Gateway running Ubuntu 11 from the
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>>>>>
>>>>>                        Patricia Wilson
>>>>>                        Apache Junction, AZ
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>>>>>                    --
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>>>>>    --
>>>>>    :-)~MIKE~(-:

>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
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>>> --
>>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>>
>
>
>
> --
> :-)~MIKE~(-:
>




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