Hi all.

I created a user named Bob. Now i want to change its home directory to be Bob1. I did this

usermod -d /home/Bob1 Bob

but not effect !!!

The name was still Bob. What might be issue ?

pls guide me

Hi,

As which user did you execute that command and did Bob have any running jobs/instances?

From the manpage: Hope this helps.

The user cannot be logged in or active.

If you want to move the contents of Bob to Bob1 then you need the -m flag, furthermore if you want the login name to change you need the -l flag.

Dear Fellows,

I was simply practicing the usermod command. I am logged in as root. I simply issued the following commands

1) useradd Bob
2) passwd Bob
3) ls /home ( to verify that /home/Bob exists )
4) usermod -d /home/Bob1 Bob

But no effect, i am not logged in as Bob. Any ideas pls ?

[Edit] I am using Centos 5.5. When i add the -m option, it doesnt execute, i am expecting that above usermod command will create a new dir in /home, is that right ?

Hi,

The -m option moves the content from the old home directory into the new home directory.

useradd Bob - Maybe cent-os lets you do it the way you tried, but: useradd Bob will not work on most distro's (Bob is an illegal name, caps are not allowed. bob would be legal). It also does not create the home directory, you need to add the -m flag.

This would be correct: useradd -m -d /home/bob bob

The following would move all to the new home directory: usermod -d /home/bob -m bob (mind you: usermod -m -d /home/bob bob will not work).

Like I said before, maybe cent-os lets you create users that contain capitals, and also creates the homedir if you do not use the -m flag (talking about the useradd command). Not all distro's do.

Hope this helps.

Dear Sir,

I tried this

1) useradd jon
2) passwd jon

Now to modify the home directory of user jon using 'usermod' command

3) usermod -d /home/jon1 jon

No effect :-( i tried it with -m but no difference

I tried your example on my Centos 5.5 box & it works, as specified by the manual
ie unless you specify the -m option, only the home dir as registered in /etc/passwd is changed.
This enables you to create a new home dir first if necessary, then switch the entry in/etc/passwd.

Dear Sir,

I was expecting that according to man page, new dir will be created automatically. I can see that entry in etc/passwd is changed but i wasnt seeing bob1 directory under /home. So you mean, my command executed but i need to create the new home dir manually ?