Written by J. Moellenkamp
on 
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Solaris

Homedirectories

Even such venerable tools like useradd could use some extra features. In a recent SRU an option was added to set a default how the home directory is created. You have three options.

Let’s try this out. When you chose yes, the home directory is created as it’s own home directory.

root@solaris:~# useradd -D -z yes
group=staff,10  project=default,3  basedir=/export/home
skel=/etc/skel  shell=/usr/bin/bash  inactive=0
expire=  auths=  roles=  profiles=  limitpriv=
defaultpriv=  lock_after_retries=  roleauth=
auth_profiles=  clearance=  min_label=  pam_policy=
project=  audit_flags=  access_times=  access_tz=
unlock_after=  tpd=  annotation=  zfshome=yes

Now i create a user with this defaults:

root@solaris:~# useradd -m userb

There is an own zfs filesystem for the homedirectory of user usera

root@solaris:/export/home# zfs list | grep "rpool/export/home/usera"
rpool/export/home/usera          35K     2G    35K  /export/home/usera

And if you check for the delegations, you will see that permissions have been passed to the user usera

root@solaris:/export/home# zfs allow rpool/export/home/usera
---- Permissions on rpool/export/home/usera -----------------------
Local+Descendent permissions:
        user usera create,mount,snapshot

Okay, now let’s try it with the setting nodelegation

root@solaris:~# useradd -D -z nodelegation
group=staff,10  project=default,3  basedir=/export/home
skel=/etc/skel  shell=/usr/bin/bash  inactive=0
expire=  auths=  roles=  profiles=  limitpriv=
defaultpriv=  lock_after_retries=  roleauth=
auth_profiles=  clearance=  min_label=  pam_policy=
project=  audit_flags=  access_times=  access_tz=
unlock_after=  tpd=  annotation=  zfshome=nodelegation

I create another user.

root@solaris:~# useradd -m userb

An own ZFS filesystem is still created.

root@solaris:/export/home# zfs list | grep "rpool/export/home/userb"
rpool/export/home/userb             35K     2G    35K  /export/home/userb

However when checking for delegations, there will be none.

root@solaris:~# zfs allow rpool/export/home/userb
root@solaris:~#

Okay. Last option to this setting. no tells the system not to create an ZFS filesystem for the user.

root@solaris:~# useradd -D -z no
group=staff,10  project=default,3  basedir=/export/home
skel=/etc/skel  shell=/usr/bin/bash  inactive=0
expire=  auths=  roles=  profiles=  limitpriv=
defaultpriv=  lock_after_retries=  roleauth=
auth_profiles=  clearance=  min_label=  pam_policy=
project=  audit_flags=  access_times=  access_tz=
unlock_after=  tpd=  annotation=  zfshome=no

Okay, yet another user.

root@solaris:~# useradd -m userc

There is no separate ZFS filesystem for this user.

root@solaris:~# zfs list | grep "userc"
root@solaris:~#

Instead the home directory has just been created as a normal directory.

root@solaris:/export/home# ls -l /export/home/ | grep userc
drwxr-xr-x   2 userc   staff          7 März  5 17:13 userc

And of course there are no delegations because there is no ZFS filesystem for this user.