On Wed, 1 Oct 2003, Hughes, Bill wrote:
> Sent: 01 October 2003 14:27 From: Igor Pechtchanski
> > 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?
>
> Is it possible to:
> use /etc/passwd if running with ntsec and file exists,
> else if /etc/passwd not present, nontsec or on 9X use $HOME.
In other words, you're suggesting that the /etc/passwd entry take
precedence over the existing $HOME setting... That could work.
> Furthermore could $HOME be defaulted to \home\'current_user' if not
> explicitly set?
It already is, except it's "/home/$USER", not "\home\$USER" (read up on
POSIX vs Win32 paths in Cygwin if you don't see the difference).
> I can also see a case for using /etc/passwd if it exists whether, or not
> ntsec is used or running on Win9x.
You can have an /etc/passwd even with nontsec... The only problem is that
there is no way that I know of to check it for validity...
> i.e. Whichever happens first:
> 1) Current user has entry in /etc/passwd, use value from here.
> 2) $HOME set by user.
> 3) Default $HOME to /home/'current_user'.
>
> Is the current user set in 9X? It's been a long time since I used this.
It is (or should be).
Igor
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