Hi Folks,
I am amit. New to linux. persuing for RHCE.
as we can change default home directory of user by using command :

#useradd -d /Home/Sales/s1 -m s1

But before firing this command, i will have to create "Sales" Directory in /home.
Can i create sales directory with s1 while creating user. i mean by using -p (which is used to add child directories) option or somehow ??


Regards,
Amit K.

First - case is important in UNIX/Linux. /Home/Sales is different than /home/sales, /home/Sales and /Home/sales. It is not against the rules but would be unusual to have the base home directory (filesystem ideally) be /Home - it is typically /home. Also by convention users are usually lower case so it should really be /home/sales/s1 NOT /Home/Sales/s1.

Secondly - useradd -m creates the home directory but assumes the parents of the home already exist so you have to use mkdir to create /home/sales (or /Home/Sales if you want to do it despite above). The mkdir -p creates all intermediate directories. So if /home already existed doing "mkdir /home/sales" would be sufficient. If home DID not already exist you'd do "mkdir -p /home/sales" which would make both /home and its subdirectory sales. Using -p doesn't hurt anything if /home already exists so you can do so - I'm just noting that it isn't necessary.

You do NOT have to do "mkdir -p /home/sales/s1" because AFTER you do the "mkdir -p /home/sales" your "useradd -m" for s1 user will create s1's home directory under /home/sales and make s1 the owner of /home/sales/s1. There is no reason s1 should be owner of /home/sales itself. For the record mkdir allows you to set the permissions on directories it creates but not the ownership/group. You can change owner group of any file (including directories) with the chmod command.