Where do user files go these days?

[Polytropon]

On Sat, 08 Nov 2014 23:39:54 -0500, T. Michael Sommers wrote:
> On 11/8/2014 9:50 PM, Polytropon wrote:
> > On Sat, 08 Nov 2014 21:37:31 -0500, T. Michael Sommers wrote:
> >> I've noticed that neither the instructions for partitioning a disk in
> >> the handbook, nor hier(7), mention a /home partition.  Is such a
> >> partition still used?  If not, where do user files go?
> >
> > It _can_ be used. Traditionally, /home is a symlink
> > to /usr/home, so if you create partitions according
> > to OS functionality, the users' data will be stored
> > on the /usr partition. But you are completely free
> > to create a dedicated /home partition - on the same
> > disk or even on a different disk; if you put every-
> > thing into one big partition, this will also work.
> > The installer will automatically create the symlink
> > as /home@ -> /usr/home for you.
> 
> Thanks.  In every system I can remember, /home was a separate file 
> system (when it existed at all), and I didn't see /usr/home in hier(7), 
> so I wondered. 

Correct; "man hier" doesn't mention it because it's
a "user thing" mostly, as the OS and system services
do not use it (or require it to function properly).
Sharing /usr with home as one partition is (in most
cases) less critical than putting all "functional
subtrees" into one and the same partition, so some
disk-filling "runaway process" could stop /tmp, /var
and even / from working properly...



> (In the Good Old Days (V7), all the user directories 
> were put directly in /usr (so you'd have /usr/fred, and /usr/john, and 
> so on).

I've even seen /usr/bwk in this documentation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc4ROCJYbm0

It can be seen at 13:30.



> I'm surprised they're back under /usr, even if a level deeper.) 
>   It was also possible that some entirely new scheme had been created.

A thing typical found on Solaris is /export/home, whereas
on IRIX it's /usr/people, if I remember correctly. On
Linux, it's usually a root file system entry named /home,
and the installers often defaults to creating one partition
where all "functional subtrees" reside.



-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...