By default a new user will have a directory created in the “/home” folder. This is the default home directory. Changing this is very simple.
If you create a new user called “test” there will be a directory created as the default home folder. e.g. “/home/test”. To change this to a different directory you will need to use the usermod function.
usermod -d /new/home/dir username
This usermod command is used for a lot of functions. Adding -d to this command makes it change the home directory. Provide the home directory path relative to the root directory. This means start the path with a forward slash “/”. Then specify the path from here to avoid any relative path issues.
Finally you must include the name of the user you want to change the home directory for. So in this instance we could use the name test.
The above command is best used on a new user or an existing user where you don’t need to keep the existing contents of the home directory. If you would like the copy the contents of the current home directory and copy them over to the new directory then add “-m” to the command. This will result in something like this.
usermod -d /new/home/dir username
