How to change home of root directory

gjoshi · 06-06-2019, 01:34 PM

Actually I have to install vsftp and FTP user will be root and the home directory of root should be #/var/www/
And I want that when ever I will login as a root I should go directly on the /var/log not on the /root.

I used below command to change root home directory but error came that /root is busy.
#usermod -d /var/www root

Please support. Thanks

scasey · 06-06-2019, 01:41 PM

To have root's home directory in the web space is a really, really bad idea.

(Using ftp instead of sftp is also a really bad idea, but...)

ftp as root, if you wish (another bad idea)

Then just

Code:

cd /var/www

from the ftp> prompt
-- there's no need to change root's home directory.

sevendogsbsd · 06-06-2019, 01:46 PM

Concur with scasey - running this as root is a bad idea. Your server though so up to you.

scasey · 06-06-2019, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gjoshi

I used below command to change root home directory but error came that /root is busy.
#usermod -d /var/www root

I'm thinking "/root is busy" because you're logged in as root; and you have to be root to change root's home dir, so, I'm guessing, it's not possible to do what you want, anyway.

crts · 06-06-2019, 02:05 PM

As others have already pointed out, probably not a good idea. If you still insist then
you could try to edit /etc/passwd manually and change root's entry from:

Code:

root:x:0:0::/root:/bin/bash

to

Code:

root:x:0:0::/var/www:/bin/bash

Afterwards logout and log back in again. I have not tried it myself so I do not know if it will work. Let us know how it goes.

Update

I just tried in inside a container and it worked! I manually changed root's home directory to /var and after I logged out and back in I was in /var.

Code:

# echo $HOME
/var

When I first read the thread my initial thought was that root's home might be hard coded. As it seems you can choose it to be something else. Still not sure why anyone would want to do that.

Shadow_7 · 06-06-2019, 04:31 PM

When you add a user you can specify /home/... --home=... on adduser. Not so sure about root. It might be easier to have /root ALSO be the other place with mount. Which you could add to /etc/fstab while NOT running the install.

# mount --rbind /var/www /root

Assuming root contents are moved to the other place so it doesn't exist in both locations (or tries to). Doing that to root and while running the distro, a very bad idea as basically everything before userspace is run as root, implicating that root is ALWAYS logged in. So changing root would not be easy on a "live" system (or advised). So have that mount equivalent in /etc/fstab before booting, and the files moved, and things should be "okay" before root "officially" logs in. And /root/ would basically be another mount point, mounted at boot. Still a very bad idea though.