linuxgeek: Changing location of /home WAS: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] new to linux, have not down loaded yet need help

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 22:32, Drmgiver <drmgiver@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ubuntu is what I use and I love it. I have recently downloaded the
> release candidate of 9.10 and I have never seen a quicker, more powerful
> Linux before, I have a feeling you will love it. Now, unfortunately I
> do not know how to do a lot of custom things like having your home
> folder in a separate partition. But I hardly ever use anything else but
> Ubuntu. I do use Windows every so often when I want to play a certain
> risque 2d MMO (lol Gee I wonder what that is) but usually I am in
> Ubuntu. On another note, that raises a question. How do I set home
> folder to a separate partition?
>
> Justin

<everything else snipped>

Well, Justin, interesting question. Us Elitist Creeps usually do it
at install time via a custom partition scheme however sometimes our
Elitist machines need a more Elite partitioning setup. So in those
cases, we Elitist Creeps prefer to use a partitioning tool on either
unallocated drive space or a fresh hard disk, and some quick edits to
/etc/fstab.

Allow me to venture into my limited Linux knowledge and explain the
first part of my statement.

In general, it's pretty Elitist to plan out a good partition scheme
ahead of time. Letting the installer do whatever it does by default
is good for most users, but we Elitists prefer having control over the
system for a specific reason. Perhaps, like JimT, we have need for it
due to users. Or perhaps we're doing something like putting the OS on
a small onboard hard disk, and putting home directories (or other data
areas) onto SAN or NAS storage, or even an external storage device
like a commercial RAID enclosure.

So, we perform the installation and when the installer gets to the
partitioning phase, we chose custom partitioning. How to get there
varies from OS to OS. For Red Hat, you choose Custom partitioning at
the first partitioning screen. For SuSE there's another way. Same
deal for Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Crunchbang/InsertUbuntuOfTheDayHere, there's a
place to choose "Custom Partitioning" in the installer.

From there, you just create your partitions and assign them mount
points... simple as that. In many cases, you really want at least
three basic partitions. /boot, /root, and swap. OR, in the case of
the OP, JimT, he may want something more like 4 partitions, /boot,
/root, /home, and swap.

From there, the installer does the rest.

Now, I shall endeavor to extrapolate the second part of my statement.
You want to move /home. Why would you do this? I, using my Elitist
Creep experience can think of several reasons for wanting to do this.
You originally installed into a second partition on one disk along
with Windows in a dual boot capacity, and now your Linux filesystem is
too small. You want to enhance system security (A very Elitist Creep
concept, I might add) by segregating /home from the rest of the
system. After all, we Elitists don't want those lesser users messing
with OUR filesystem. And there are many others beyond. But it is,
for us Elitist Creeps, at least, a very easy task.

I'll give you one snarky example dripping with all the Elitist Creep
Condescension I can muster, mister.

Lets say you have a 20GB hard disk that has your Linux install on it.
That's very unElite and you want more storage, a very reasonable idea,
and you don't want to go and reinstall. That's a great idea... and
simple to accomplish.

SO, for your new space, you install a 250GB disk. "Well, now what?"
you ask... IT's simple, and very 31337.

First, you use fdisk or parted (two tools written by elitists). Lets
say you want to add just one 250GB partition and use the entire disk
for /home. So, using parted or fdisk, or gparted, or kparted, or
<insert your partitioning tool of choice (only us Elitist Creeps use
fdisk or parted; the others are GUI based partitioning tools, and Bob
knows we Elitists Creeps don't like GUIs at all.) Now that you've
created them you need to format them.

Here, I do apologize. My Elitist Ideals have prevented me from
actually using something as lowly as a GUI to format a disk, thus I
must resort to that Most Elitist of Creep Tools, the terminal. From
there, I'd simply issue the most Elite command mke2fs -j /dev/hdX
where X is the letter of your new drive. Of course, if your're super
Elite and using SATA or SAS, your drive will be sdX, not hdX.

Now you're set. You can of course test this, and all Elitists like to
revel in their Sk1llz0rZ by manually mounting this new partition and
making sure it works. So you'd issue the 1337 command mount like so:

mount /dev/hdX /mnt

( or /media/disk, or into some arbitrary mount point you create for
this task). (Hint, us Elitists LOVE arbitrary mount points. Why I
just sit around all day making up new and exciting mount points,
randomly mounting partitons in a most Elitist manner. Of course, I'm
too Elite to use TYPICAL mount points).

Now you can copy, create, open and dElite files from that new disk,
just to be sure.

Following that, you have only two more steps to being enjoying your NEW /home.

The first thing you want to do is edit the file /etc/fstab. In there,
you'll want to add a line for your new /home. It'll look something
like this:

/dev/hdX /home ext3 defaults 0 0

Of course, us Elitists usually change defaults to a strange and
mystical super secret default permissions scheme that we discuss
amongst ourselves on secret web forums and mailing lists that you have
to be Elite to join, but defaults work in most cases for most people.

Now that you've edited /etc/fstab and saved that file, you have just
two more things to do...

First, you need to copy the contents of /home to the new /home. SO,
have you mounted your new disk to /mnt or some arbitrary mount point?
Good. Copy the ENTIRE contents of /home (cp -a usually will do the
trick) to your arbitrary mount point. After that's done... and it
could take a while if you have a lot of data in /home, it's time to
reboot.

Now, you COULD do the super Elite thing and just remount your
filesystems, but honestly, when you're mucking about with filesystems
it's sometimes good to just reboot and start from scratch with your
new scheme... and this also applies if you should be simply resizing
partitions as well.

Once that's done, you should have a running system.

BUT WAIT... THere's more. Here's an Elitist Tip from me to you.
Where did all the original data go? It's still there. Hopefully,
you've read this through and got here BEFORE you did everything else.
So the problem now is, you used to have stuff in a directory called
/home. Now you have stuff in a disk that's mounted to /home. BUT,
all that original data is still there. It's still on your disk, and
untouchable for the most part.

What to do? What to do? The simplest answer is often the Elitist.
You MOVE instead of COPY from /home to your new disk prior to
rebooting. OR, you just delete the contents of /home before
rebooting. 6 of one, half dozen Elitist shoulder shrugs of the other.

And there you have it. Now you know, in the basic sense with fairly
Elitist Experience and Creepiness how to move /home, both during
installation and on a live system.

Go forth now youngling with your new found knowledge whilst I retreat
to the Most Excellent Halls of Elitistia to contemplate teh n00bz and
the intricacies of my most Elitist ponderings...

Yours In Elitist Creepiness,
You Betcha!

The Dread Pirate Jeff

--

Mike Ditka - "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have
given us arms."