relocate user folder

[gkar]

A 60 gig drive is really large until you start ripping CDs - then it gets small fast. So I bought a second hard drive and now all I want to do is place my user directory on it. I know I've seen a hint somewhere on how to redirect OS X to a new user directory but I'm darned if I can find it now that I want it. Thanks.

[Phil St. Romain]

I'm really not sure if this will work, but have you tried relocating your user folder, then making an alias to it?

[Craig R. Arko]

I don't think a simple alias will suffice, although a symbolic link probably would.

The preferred method, I understand, is to copy the individual users' home directories to the new partition, and then use NetInfo Manager to set the /users/username/home Property to point to the new location. You'd need to do this for each user you wish to move from the default location.

I haven't tried this myself yet but may do so soon.

[griffman]

On the hints side of the site, there are a couple of existing hints on this:

Hint #1 (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010619195610633) and hint #2 (http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20010325102750788).

Both have some added user comments which list even more ways to move the user's folder.

-rob.

[Opie]

Why can't you just edit the fstab? Works on every other Unix in existence...

(Although "fstab" is more of a historical name, for instance on Solaris it's usually vfstab, and there's the raidtab, and on and on and on...)

[Phil St. Romain]

Originally posted by Craig R. Arko
I don't think a simple alias will suffice, although a symbolic link probably would.


My ignorance of Unix, obviously, which is why I didn't sign up for that forum. ;)

[hschickel]

As Craig mentioned, the best way is to move the folder and then relink it via Netinfo. There are a couple of Gotchas here though.

1. If you move your individual user's folder you should leave a "Users" folder with a "Shared" folder on the boot partition. Certain applications need this and will fail if it is not present. (AOL and AIM come immediately to mind.)

2. If you move your users folder you should do it in a way that preserves permissions and resource forks. sudo ditto -rsrc /Users/username /Volumes/NewPartition/Users/username is one example of a method that will accomplish this. NOTE: unlock all files before using the ditto command.

3. Aliases and symlinks will fail under different conditions when moving your users folder. The only sure way to have all applications, processes and filesystems recognize the new location under all conditions is to register the new location with Netinfo. Launch Netinfo Manager and navigate to /users/username in the directory browser (upper panel). Click on the lock to authenticate. Then change the "home" property (lower panel) to the new location - ie. /volumes/NewPartition/Users/username.

***The above can be accomplished with a fstab file but this may result in problems do to the autodiskmount feauture of OSX's particular brand of unix. I suspect this problem would more likely manifest itself under a multidrive system but I have no proof of that. See this link (http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=322544&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7) for a good brief explanation of the potential fstab / autodiskmount conflict. This link (http://www.macfixitforums.com/php/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=322544&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=7&vc=1) will take you to an ongoing discussion of this issue at MacFixit.

Hugh

[rgoer]

Originally posted by Opie
Why can't you just edit the fstab? Works on every other Unix in existence...

(Although "fstab" is more of a historical name, for instance on Solaris it's usually vfstab, and there's the raidtab, and on and on and on...)

The geeks on the Darwin Developers' mailing list have tried to warn everybody of the dangers present in Darwin's fstab implementation. You can read about it here (http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/OSX/OS_x_swapfile_notes.html). Short and sweet: don't fsck with fstab. There are some dangerous differences between the way Darwin handles fstab and the ways other unices have done so in the past.