How to Set Up /home With Multiple Home Directory File Systems

1. Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

   For information about roles, see “Using Privileged Applications” in System Administration Guide: Security Services.

2. Install home directory partitions under /export/home.

   If the system has several partitions, install the partitions under separate directories, for example, /export/home1, /export/home2, and so on.

3. Use the Solstice System Management Tools to create and maintain the auto_home map.

   Whenever you create a new user account, type the location of the user's home directory in the auto_home map. Map entries can be simple, for example:

   rusty dragon:/export/home1/& gwenda dragon:/export/home1/& charles sundog:/export/home2/& rich dragon:/export/home3/&

   Notice the use of the & (ampersand) to substitute the map key. The ampersand is an abbreviation for the second occurrence of rusty in the following example.

   rusty dragon:/export/home1/rusty

   With the auto_home map in place, users can refer to any home directory (including their own) with the path /home/user. user is their login name and the key in the map. This common view of all home directories is valuable when logging in to another user's computer. Autofs mounts your home directory for you. Similarly, if you run a remote windowing system client on another computer, the client program has the same view of the /home directory.

   This common view also extends to the server. Using the previous example, if rusty logs in to the server dragon, autofs there provides direct access to the local disk by loopback-mounting /export/home1/rusty onto /home/rusty.

   Users do not need to be aware of the real location of their home directories. If rusty needs more disk space and needs to have his home directory relocated to another server, you need only change rusty's entry in the auto_home map to reflect the new location. Other users can continue to use the /home/rusty path.