Changing the default home directory

Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User

By default, when we create or add users to Linux System, user’s default home directory is created to /home. To change default directory to /opt/, we need to change few settings as mentioned below:

As the root user open /etc/default/useradd using your favorite editor.

[root@workbox dwmoar]# nano /etc/default/useradd

The default home directory defined by HOME variable, find line that read as follows: HOME=/home

useradd defaults file GROUP=100 HOME=/home  INACTIVE=-1 EXPIRE= SHELL=/bin/bash SKEL=/etc/skel

and change it to read HOME=/opt Save and close the file.

Now you can add a user, using the useradd command in a console window as the root user:


 * 1)  useradd username
 * 2)  passwd -d userpassword

Verify user information: NOTE: You will have to install the finger program through the package manager.


 * 1)  finger username

Output: Login: username    Name: username userpassword Directory: /opt/username    Shell: /bin/bash Never logged in. No mail. No Plan.