Adduser - home directory set to /

Question

I added user with adduser user and then entered password with passwd password. When I su - user I got "No directory, logging in with HOME=/"

What's going on, how do I fix it?

Answer 1

Likely the home directory was not created along with the user. The easiest method would be using usermod:

usermod -dm /home/USER USER

Where

• -d -- Changes the home directory
• -m -- Creates the home directory if does not exist
• /home/USER -- where this is the full path to the new home directory.

So this does not happen in the future you should always use the ‘create home’ option with useradd: -m or --create-home. This will build out the new home directory using /etc/skel as the template.

Answer 2

Take a look at /etc/passwd and see what the users home dir is set to, it should be the 6th : seperated column

Use usermod to change his home dir:

$ usermod -d /home/user user

Answer 3

It is saying that the directory does not exist, check to make sure that /home/username exists. If it does not then run the following commands

mkdir /home/username
cp -r --preserve /etc/skel/* /home/username
chown -R username.username /home/username

This should create the directory for the user and stop the error you are seeing from showing up.

Answer 4

Maybe your version of adduser doesn't create the new home directory by default?

Answer 5

In future use the -m switch to useradd:

-m, --create-home create home directory for the new user