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Duplicate home directory

 
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# 1  
Old 02-19-2014
Duplicate home directory
Hi,

I'm running a RHEL6 machine on a VMWare platform and I have somehow created a duplicate /home directory. See below.

Code:
[root@localhost twood]# pwd
/home/home/twood
[root@localhost twood]# ls
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos
[root@localhost twood]#

I am currently working on some disk quota procedures and I amended the /etc/fstab file so that /home directory is mounted on /dev/sda2:

Code:
# vim /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab
# Created by anaconda on Mon Mar  5 08:13:08 2012
#
# Accessible filesystems, by reference, are maintained under '/dev/disk'
# See man pages fstab(5), findfs(8), mount(8) and/or blkid(8) for more info
#
UUID=d1b32264-d4f4-43d3-8cae-6df75fc41feb /                       ext4    defaults        1 1
UUID=abda4f23-6594-4276-bdf1-49ddc55f71fb /boot                   ext4    defaults        1 2
UUID=eaaeb2c7-ddb9-4dcf-9416-e09a11197112 swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
tmpfs                   /dev/shm                tmpfs   defaults        0 0
devpts                  /dev/pts                devpts  gid=5,mode=620  0 0
sysfs                   /sys                    sysfs   defaults        0 0
proc                    /proc                   proc    defaults        0 0
/dev/sr0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/sdb1               /test                   ext4    defaults        1 2
LABEL=NEWSWAP           swap                    swap    defaults        0 0
/dev/sda2               /home                   ext4    defaults,usrquota 1 2

Code:
[root@localhost twood]# mount | grep home
/dev/sda2 on /home type ext4 (rw,usrquota)

Since I mounted the /home file sytem on /dev/sda2 I seem to have created a duplicate home directory:

Code:
[root@localhost twood]# pwd
/home/home/twood
[root@localhost twood]# ls
Desktop  Documents  Downloads  Music  Pictures  Public  Templates  Videos
[root@localhost twood]#

I am not sure how this has happened but when I try to remove the duplicate home directory I am unable to as I get the following message:

Code:
root@localhost home]# pwd
/home
[root@localhost home]# rmdir home
rmdir: failed to remove `home': Device or resource busy
[root@localhost home]#


I want my home directory to be as ' /home/twood', not '/home/home/twood' as it currently stands. Please can anyone advise me of working round this?
# 2  
Old 02-19-2014
/home/home now contains home directories. If you get rid of /home/home you also lose /home/home/twood. Ditto for any other home directories in /home/home. You need to log off as twood and get any other affected users off the box. Then login as root and do:
Code:
cd /home/home
mv twood /home

Do that for any other affected users as well. Once /home/home is empty you can do:
Code:
cd /
rmdir /home/home

What is listed in /etc/passwd as your home directories? You may need to edit that as well.
# 3  
Old 02-20-2014
Was /home part of the root filesystem and did you move the content of /home to the new filesystem with something like this:-
Code:
mkdir /newhome
mount /dev/sda2 /newhome
mv /home /newhome
umount /newhome
mount /home

I would always do this booted from media so I could ensure that the disks were all idle. You may well find that home directories point to /home/twood etc. but when you log in it tells you that it's not found.

If you have done this, then a better way to have achieved this would be:-
  • Boot from media, no network, start a shell. Then:-
    Code:
    mkdir /mnt/root
mkdir /mnt/home
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/root
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt/home

cd /mnt/root/home
tar -cvf - . | (cd /mnt/home ; tar -xvpf -)
cd

mv /mnt/root/home /mnt/root/oldhome
mkdir -pm 755 /mnt/root/home
umount /mnt/root
umount /mnt/home
exit

  • Reboot the server.
If this all works then you can dispose of /oldhome when you are happy.

Of course, it depends where you are now. Can you tell us what was actually done?



Robin
Liverpool/Blackburn
UK
 
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