Hi all.

I was just exploring if i could create a normal user without a home directory.

So i edited the file /etc/defaults/useradd and it now shows

[root@Rancid ~]# cat /etc/default/useradd
# useradd defaults file
GROUP=100
INACTIVE=-1
EXPIRE=
SHELL=/bin/bash
SKEL=/etc/skel
CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=yes

As you can see i simply deleted the home variable here. Now when i do useradd -D

[root@Rancid ~]# useradd -D
GROUP=100
HOME=/home
INACTIVE=-1
EXPIRE=
SHELL=/bin/bash
SKEL=/etc/skel
CREATE_MAIL_SPOOL=yes

Why is this so ? why isnt the change in useradd reflected here ?

I don't know why the output of 'useradd -D' doesn't change, but if you want to create a user without a home directory modifying defaults like you're doing is not the way to do it.

You could just run

[CODE]
$ useradd bob
[CODE]

Then edit /etc/passwd to delete the home directory. There might be a neater way. I can't see an option on useradd to not specify one.