Re: [gentoo-dev] [PATCH 2/2] install-qa-check.d: allow acct-user home directories under /home.

[Michael Orlitzky]

Let it die =) I'm not going to apply the patch; it's there if someone
else decides that it's the least-bad solution to this problem.


On 1/20/20 6:57 PM, Andreas K. Huettel wrote:
>
> Why *isn't* some /var/lib/... possible here?

It is, the question is how many backflips we should be doing to avoid
putting what is practically and factually a home directory in /home. I
have a few of these packages. I will echo ulm's sentiment that it's just
awful to put them all in

  /var/lib/user1-home
  /var/lib/user2-home
  ...

rather than /home/user1 and /home/user2.

That's also second-guessing the administrator, whose home directory
policies for e.g. backups very likely apply to the home directories I'm
creating. (Keep in mind that I'm only talking about exceptions for very
special packages that install a system user that will also be used by a
human or that stores per-user configuration. And the exception is only
for the keepdir file.)

Home directories in /home were also allowed with user.eclass, which
means that we now hit a roadblock updating those accounts to GLEP81.


>
> I mean, user configuration works perfectly fine there, even if you have to
> log in. And the purpose of the account is closer to, say, root (with its
> nonstandard home directory location) than a normal user.
>
> I've seen all possible site-specific changes to /home layout, including,
> e.g.,
> * /home/server1/username
> * /home/large/username
> * /home/u/username
> ...
> which would all get somehow messy if a system account with a fixed path is
> forced in there.
>

Sure, but is having them scattered across BOTH /home AND /var/lib less
messy? We're picking a default, and with GLEP81, the people who do this
could move it to /home/u/${PN} with an overlay ebuild; whatever makes
them happy. For everyone else, it's a good default.