When changing a user home directory via GUI. "create home directory" checkbox does not work

Description

I am trying to change the home directory of a user (because ssh no longer works for users whose home is /var/empty/).

There is a checkbox in the GUI that explicitly says "create home directory".

That checkbox does not work. whether it is checked or not the result is the same, error if the folder in question does not already exist.

you need to mkdir that folder manually via ssh. you simply cannot use the GUI to create it. This creates a chicken and egg scenario. as you need to SSH in to mkdir a home folder, which is required to SSH.

For more specific example.
I have a dataset fam. which is mounted under
/mnt/tank/fam/

I have a user named admin whose home is currently set to /var/empty

trying to change the home dir to
/mnt/tank/fam/admin/home
gives the error
/mnt/tank/fam/admin: parent path of specified home directory does not exist.

trying to set it to
/mnt/tank/fam/admin
gives the error:
/mnt/tank/fam/admin: path specified to use for home directory creation does not exist. TrueNAS uses the provided path as the parent directory of the newly-created home directory.

in both examples I had the box for create home folder checked.

Problem/Justification

None

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Bug Clerk January 20, 2025 at 5:26 PM

This issue has now been closed. Comments made after this point may not be viewed by the TrueNAS Teams. Please open a new issue if you have found a problem or need to re-engage with the TrueNAS Engineering Teams.

Andrew Walker January 20, 2025 at 5:26 PM

Works properly in 25.04 alpha and earlier releases.

Tal Tamir September 5, 2024 at 3:45 PM
Edited

Admin is a special reserved username that has a special homedir path in /home. How did you create this user account?

I initially installed truenas core years ago. then upgraded it to truenas scale as soon as it was possible to do so (first version of scale). then upgraded to each new version of truenas scale one at a time as they were released. As soon as electric eel is out of beta, I will upgrade to it.

Initially, admin was created automatically by the installer as the main login account for the web interface. And it was the ONLY possible admin account for logging in with on the web interface at the time.

Later on the rules changed to discourage its use for logging in to the web interface. making it a reserved account and suggesting users create a different account to be the main administrator.

IIRC I kept on using admin as my main account for at least 1 major release before complying with said rules, creating a new admin account tal and leaving the grandfathered in admin account to sit there unused.

at some point IIRC I think I deleted the account admin and maybe later recreated it in dragonfish.

I suspect there are various leftover grandfathering rules that were used to help make the transition from one version to another.

Tal Tamir September 5, 2024 at 3:37 PM
Edited

Do you see this issue if you use a username that is not admin?

Yes. I replicated all the issues with a brand new account created just for testing purpose. the new account was named test

Andrew Walker August 30, 2024 at 8:21 PM

Do you see this issue if you use a username that is not admin?

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Katalon Platform

Created August 28, 2024 at 2:18 PM
Updated February 27, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Resolved January 20, 2025 at 5:26 PM