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I would like to move my root user's directory to a larger partition. Sometimes "he" runs out of space when performing tasks.

Here are my partitions:

host3:~# df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1               334460    320649         0 100% /
tmpfs                   514128         0    514128   0% /lib/init/rw
udev                     10240       720      9520   8% /dev
tmpfs                   514128         0    514128   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda9            228978900   1534900 215812540   1% /home
/dev/sda8               381138     10305    351155   3% /tmp
/dev/sda5              4806904    956852   3605868  21% /usr
/dev/sda6              2885780   2281584    457608  84% /var

The root user's home directory is /root. I would like to relocate this, and any other user's home directories to a new location, perhaps on sda9. How do I go about this?

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Do you need to have /root on a separate partition, or would it be enough to simply copy the contents somewhere else and set up a symbolic link? (Disclaimer: I've never tried this, but it should work.) – SmallClanger Nov 30 '10 at 17:31
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4 Answers

up vote 0 down vote accepted

You should avoid symlinks, it can make nasty bugs to appear... one day. And very hard to debug.

Use mount --bind:

# as root
cp -a /root /home/
echo "" >> /etc/fstab
echo "/home/root /root none defaults,bind 0 0" >> /etc/fstab

# do it now
cd / ; mv /root /root.old; mkdir /root; mount -a

it will be made at every reboots which you should do now if you want to catch errors soon

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I have tried this and all seems to be fine so far. Thanks shellholic. – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 18:34
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You're welcome. But remember moving /root is a bad practice. Perhaps you could change a bit and make /home/bigrootfiles and mount/link it to some directory inside /root. If your "big files" are for some service. The best practice on Debian is to put them in /var/lib/somename – shellholic Nov 30 '10 at 18:40
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I see. Ultimately root login should not be used IMO. I guess I still might forgo moving /root entirely since it is not really very good to do. I just need to setup some new sudoer users with directories on the right partition and setup keyed authentication for better security. That would be the best solution I think. – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 18:42
Perhaps make a new question describing the purpose of your case and you could come with great answers. – shellholic Nov 30 '10 at 18:45
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up vote 0 down vote

Never tried it, but you shouldn't have a problem with:
cd / to make sure you're not in the directory to be moved
mv /root /home/root
ln -s /home/root /root symlink it back to the original location.

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up vote 0 down vote

You can do the following

usermod -d /home/root root
mv /root /home
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Thanks, I looked up info on usermod and looks like the directory can be moved too using that command and -m option: computerhope.com/unix/usermod.htm – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 17:48
This seemed to work, but doing cd ~ causes the error "-bash: cd: /root: No such file or directory". Do I need to logout/login for the new "~" to take effect? – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 17:55
I would really not try that. It can be a nightmare soon. – shellholic Nov 30 '10 at 17:56
shellholic, what is wrong with usermod? seems like the "correct" solution to moving a user's home directory in that it is modifying the user's home directory. – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 17:59
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I found this info somewhere else as to "why not to physically move /root", You probably shouldn't move /root to a new partition. The reason /root is put on the root filesystem is so that if there's a boot problem and Linux is unable to mount any other partitions besides the root partition, then root can still get to all his files. If /root is on a separate partition, he'll still be able to log in in that case, but won't have any access to files in his home dir. I think I may change to shellholic's solution. – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 18:28
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up vote 0 down vote
  • Boot from any available Linux LiveCD
  • mount /dev/sda1 and /dev/sda9
  • move /root content to /home
  • edit /etc/fstab to reflect changes
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booting from a live cd is unfortunately not an option for a remote server, which this is the case here. – nicholas.alipaz Nov 30 '10 at 17:54
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