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Re: home directory not created in cygwin installation
On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 09:27:25AM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, John Morrison wrote:
>
> > Igor, think there's anything /etc/profile could do about this?
> >
> > J.
>
> John,
>
> This is thin ice... On one hand, we want to make things work pretty
> seamlessly. On the other, we don't want to limit the more advanced users
> by not letting them change the home directory on the fly (anyone doing
> that, anyway?). One "solution" I can see is to ignore the $HOME setting
> completely, and always go by /etc/passwd. I think this was discussed
> before, but can't recall the details. One caveat I see is that this would
> require an existing (and valid) /etc/passwd, whereas nowadays it's
> optional (with "nontsec" or in Win9x). I don't know if this will daunt
> the advanced users, but it's probably something to discuss. Opinions?
> Igor
Having HOME from Windows different from /etc/passwd is useful for domain
users. HOME can be set to a directory on a shared drive for use while
working at the console, while /etc/passwd points a local directory to allow
passwordless network access. I use that all the time.
Note that /etc/passwd is optional even with ntsec, as long as you don't
mind having a funny group name and as long as you don't need to chown,
use cron, log in from the network, etc.. That's important for people
who don't use Cygwin as a Unix-like work environment but only to
run standalone programs.
Pierre
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