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script to check for a directory in /home for all users

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting script to check for a directory in /home for all users
# 8  
Old 12-30-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by frans
I'm not totally certain but this should jail the user too :
Code:
cd ~user
ln -fs /media/share/ newdir

This done, if you cd newdir you will be in /media/share/ and after if you cd .. you will be in user's home, not in /media/.
Depending on how the user is jailed in his home directory...
The problem with symlinks is that they can't be followed if the user is restricted to their home directory in proftp and in samba if wide links are disabled

Quote:
Originally Posted by methyl
Thank you for making the question clear. Sorry if I was a bit abrupt earlier.



Like frans I am having difficulty understanding item 3 in a unix context.

The Linux "mount" command is used to mount a filesystem on a mountpoint.
A mountpoint is an empty directory which acts as a pointer to the filesystem.
We would normally mount the filesystem on system startup using parameters in one line of "fstab". I can't see a reason to make this dynamic.

As frans correctly deduced, the conventional approach in unix is to use a soft link (see "man ln") to point a directory under a user's home directory to a directory in a filesystem which is under a different mountpoint from the user's home directory.
I am unclear whether there is to be one common directory for all users or multiple individual directories.


If we are using soft links, items 1 and 2 only need to be done once for existing accounts and then as required when a new account is created.


(I had not seen posts #5 and #6 before eventually posting).
I was aware of this but am not able to put it so eloquently, I am very much open to suggestion if you have a better method of allowing access to a separate directory without using symlinks and preventing the user wandering around the filesystem.

Basically, I have a directory mounted by fstab as /media/share and I would like this to be available to all users as a directory in their /home dir as /home/USERNAME/newdir. Currently I have a line in the fstab for each user that looks something like /media/share/ /home/barrydocks/newdir auto defaults,bind 0 0 I just thought that there would be a more efficient way of doing it so that I didn't have to edit fstab each time a user is added?
Last edited by barrydocks; 12-30-2010 at 06:33 PM..
# 9  
Old 12-30-2010
Okay. Time to back off.

Imho. the concept is flawed and does not scale satisfactorily.
We don't know your maximum number of user accounts but I believe that you will potentially create a situation whereby the sheer number of entries in fstab will break the kernel. Also "fsck" after any form of crash will be a nightmare.

Personally (assuming that the aforementioned use of soft links is not allowed) I'd create the private directory under /home and be done with it. If there isn't enough disc space I'd create the home directory under /media/share.
A home directory does not have to be under /home and a jailed account should not be able to find out where they are in the master directory tree. As far as they are concerned their home directory is root.

There will no doubt be experts on this forum who have had good experiences with automounting selected directories from a shared filesystem using Ubuntu Linux on a large scale.
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