Take my home/ /home

davidep · October 28, 2016, 12:31pm

Let’s forgot about that strange /var/lib/nethserver/home home directory path.

Do not break expectations. Let’s follow upstream settings. Come back /home

We can still bind-mount it, but …who would notice the change?

We have also a bug to fix, and it can be the right moment to do it in the right way:

What do you think?

davidep · October 28, 2016, 12:39pm

In the past we decided to set it under /var, to simplify the deployment of a single-growing partition system. However home directories are seldom used, and today I’d prefer being more upstream-compliant and simplify possible migration paths to NethServer.

Edit: the single-growing partition idea is still valid with the current bind mount in /etc/fstab:

/var/lib/nethserver/home	/home	none	defaults,bind	0 0

The only thing I’d change is the home directory path, as returned by the getent system calls:

  $ getent passwd davidep
davidep:*:5123:5333:Davide Principi:/home/davidep:/bin/bash

A dedicated /home partition would be supported seamlessly! The bind mount is not executed if /home is mounted elsewhere:

github.com

NethServer/nethserver-base/blob/master/root/etc/e-smith/events/actions/home-bind#L12




use strict;
use warnings;


my $lineExists = 0;
open (RD, "</etc/fstab") || die("Cannot open input file /etc/fstab: $!\n");
while (<RD>)
{
next if ($_ =~ /^#/);
my @line = split(/\s+/);
if ( defined($line[1]) && $line[1] eq '/home' ){
    $lineExists = 1;
}
}
close(RD);


if (! $lineExists == 1){
open(my $fh, '>>', '/etc/fstab') or die ("Cannot open output file /etc/fstab: $!\n");
print $fh "/var/lib/nethserver/home\t/home\tnone\tdefaults,bind\t0 0\n";
close $fh;
exit system("/bin/mount /home");

robb · October 28, 2016, 6:38pm

I come from Ubuntu and I really had to search for home directories and samba shares.
If it isn’t too difficult to implement, I would say: yes please. It sure does come closer to my comfort zone.

But we must be aware what impact it will have for NethServer: Not only the local path changes, I can imagine something will change in paths for services like backup.

mark_nl · October 28, 2016, 7:39pm

Agree!! I One of the things of the DNA of *X is /home/user.

EddieA · October 28, 2016, 7:40pm

Anything that traverses the the filesystem starting at / that doesn’t exclude mounted file-systems. They will see all the files and directories twice.

There are many articles on the differences between soft-linking directories and bind-mounting them.

Unfortunately both methods have their plus and minus points.

Cheers.

alefattorini · November 3, 2016, 9:52am

How much does it cost? If it’s doable, yes please!

davidep · November 3, 2016, 10:04am

If /home is mounted elsewhere we should bind mount it instead of /var/lib/nethserver/home (swap source/dest)
/home must be excluded from backups

There are few things to change, but many other to test! Perhaps it’s too late to put it in ns7 Final…

Honestly we can postpone this enhancement. There’s no hurry!

robb · November 3, 2016, 11:03am

Because? If all data is in /home then it must be backupped. Or is this because it is a link mount from "/var/lib/nethserver/home and already backedup from there?

davidep · November 3, 2016, 11:05am

You said it! Anything under /var/lib/nethserver is in the backup by default!