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Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 21:07:17 -0400
From: "Pierre A. Humblet" <pierre DOT humblet AT ieee DOT org>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: home directory not created in cygwin installation
Message-ID: <20031002010714.GA48859999@hpn5170x>
Mail-Followup-To: "Pierre A. Humblet" <pierre DOT humblet AT ieee DOT org>,
	cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
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On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 09:27:25AM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, John Morrison wrote:
>
> > Igor, think there's anything /etc/profile could do about this?
> >
> > J.
> 
> John,
> 
> This is thin ice...  On one hand, we want to make things work pretty
> seamlessly.  On the other, we don't want to limit the more advanced users
> by not letting them change the home directory on the fly (anyone doing
> that, anyway?).  One "solution" I can see is to ignore the $HOME setting
> completely, and always go by /etc/passwd.  I think this was discussed
> before, but can't recall the details.  One caveat I see is that this would
> require an existing (and valid) /etc/passwd, whereas nowadays it's
> optional (with "nontsec" or in Win9x).  I don't know if this will daunt
> the advanced users, but it's probably something to discuss.  Opinions?
> 	Igor

Having HOME from Windows different from /etc/passwd is useful for domain
users. HOME can be set to a directory on a shared drive for use while 
working at the console, while /etc/passwd points a local directory to allow 
passwordless network access. I use that all the time.

Note that /etc/passwd is optional even with ntsec, as long as you don't
mind having a funny group name and as long as you don't need to chown, 
use cron, log in from the network, etc.. That's important for people 
who don't use Cygwin as a Unix-like work environment but only to
run standalone programs.

Pierre

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