Moving /home of a package account, and to where?
Hi,
Debian QA decided recently that it is bad to have a system/package
account created with its home directory in /home/package, as it is
adduser --system's default btw. I am therefore faced with having to
change /home to some non-/home place. Unfortunately, policy does not
give any hint about how to do it right.
Where do I put my user's home directory? In this case, the user's home
directory contains a .ssh with known_hosts, authorized_keys and actual
keys and it might additionally accumulate some regular dotfiles.
(1)
Which is the correct place for a user's home dir?
/etc/<package> or /etc/<package>/home
- surprise for a seasoned admin
- might create QA bugs regarding "package does not properly clean up
after itself"
- might create dpkg-conffile hassle for files that are bound to
automatically change during operation, such as known_hosts
/var/lib/
- impossible to use ("users must never need to modify files in
/var/lib to configure a package's operation", FHS)
/var/cache/ / /var/spool
- inapprorpiate via FHS
/var/run
- inappropriate as /var/run is cleared during boot
So, /etc looks like the only feasible way for a package that needs
configuration files in its users' home directory. Is that the case or
am I missing things?
For a package that has never been part of a Debian stable release, it
is ok to just change the home directory in the maintainer script,
causing existing installations (5, regarding to popcon) to still use
the old, "inappropriate" location (with a NEWS.Debian suggesting a
manual change), or do I _really_ need to prompt the user whether he
wants his old data to be moved, forcing me to handle gazillions of
translation and debconf-related bugs?
Greetings
Marc
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