Linux Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User

Linux Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User

By default base directory for the system user is set to /home directory. I'd like to add user to /iscsi/home/${user} directory instead of the default /home. How do I force useradd command to add user to /iscsi/home under CentOS / RHEL / Fedora Linux server?

Default values for account creation defined in /etc/default/useradd file under CentOS / RHEL / Fedora / Debian / Ubuntu and other Linux distros. Simply open this file using a text editor, type:
# vi /etc/default/useradd
The default home directory defined by HOME variable, find line that read as follows:
HOME=/home
Replace with:
HOME=/gokil
Save and close the file. Now you can add user using regular useradd command:
# useradd lookforshare
# passwd lookforsahre

Install finger
# apt-get install finger
 
Verify user information:
# finger
Output:

Login: lookforshare                            Name: lookforshare
Directory: /gokil/lookforhare               Shell: /bin/bash
Last login Thu Des 1 07:58 2014 (IST) on pts/1 from 192.168.10.119
No mail.
No Plan.

How Do I Change Existing User's Home Directory?

You need to use the usermod command to set the user's new login directory. The syntax is as follows:

 
usermod -m -d /path/to/new/home/dir userNameHere
 

Where,

1. -d dirnanme : Path to new login (home) directory.
2. -m : The contents of the current home directory will be moved to the new home directory, which is created if it does not already exist.

In this example set the user's new login directory to /users/v/vivek from /home/vivek, enter:
# usermod -m -d /gokil/lookforshare lookforshare