From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Nov 9 02:50:13 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 9D9B2F2A for ; Sun, 9 Nov 2014 02:50:13 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mx02.qsc.de (mx02.qsc.de [213.148.130.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 621872BB for ; Sun, 9 Nov 2014 02:50:12 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-37-193.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.37.193]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx02.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 80672276E2; Sun, 9 Nov 2014 03:50:11 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id sA92oBMr008495; Sun, 9 Nov 2014 03:50:11 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 9 Nov 2014 03:50:11 +0100 From: Polytropon To: "T. Michael Sommers" Subject: Re: Where do user files go these days? Message-Id: <20141109035011.a3fea3b3.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <545ED36B.8040207@gmail.com> References: <545ED36B.8040207@gmail.com> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD Questions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 02:50:13 -0000 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. Just make sure that /home exists and is either the correct mount point or a symlink to the actual location (for example /home@ -> /export/home, where /export is the mountpoint for a "shared disk"). Basically, you can create _any_ partitions you like and add a mountpoint for them; /home is not an exception, it's just a "special case" as its presence is expected by many user-run programs. You can configure those things as you like. Here is an example (trimmed): % mount /dev/ad4s1a on / (ufs, local) /dev/ad4s1d on /tmp (ufs, local, soft-updates) /dev/ad4s1e on /var (ufs, local, soft-updates) /dev/ad4s1f on /usr (ufs, local, soft-updates) /dev/ad4s1g on /opt (ufs, local, soft-updates) /dev/ad6 on /home (ufs, local, soft-updates) Similarly, /home could have been /dev/ad4s1f, or even part of /dev/ads1e (which is /usr). -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...