From: nospam@needed.invalid   
      
   On Thu, 6/5/2025 2:55 PM, lisa wrote:   
      
   >   
   > thanks for your extended help.   
   > Tried all and looked at all of them.   
   > I'm familiar with windows hidden files and I know Linux also use them.   
   > Yeah, sometimes my brain is overlooking stuff or I'm just to fast?   
   >   
      
   I'm surprised at the number of articles I can find in Google,   
   where the users seem to be unaware of potential uid:gid issues.   
      
   The users in this thread seem to be aware of the potential   
   for mayhem.   
      
   https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/528109/set-up-users-dur   
   ng-install-based-on-directories-in-home   
      
   You could start by looking at the current home directory numbering.   
      
      ls -n /old_home   
      total 8   
      drwxr-xr-x 32 1000 1000 4096 Jul  5 18:26 old_user   
                    ^^^^ ^^^^   
      
   The UID and GID are correct for alignment with the first   
   user account assigned during a clean install.   
      
   But doing that is taking a chance. I've had the first   
   account on Linux installs, occupy  1000 or 1001 or 1002.   
   Don't ask me in the latter two cases, what "other"   
   accounts the OS installer may have been using or assigning   
   instead of handling mine. Root starts at a different   
   place than users generally, so we cannot blame a root   
   assignment for "grabbing 1000".   
      
   You can see the /etc/passwd and /etc/group have the mapping   
   from name to number. As far as I know, the file system just   
   has the numbers, like 1000:1000 for a file. Now, *if* you connected   
   a /home with 1000:1000 and those numbers in fact are not   
   in /etc/passwd or /etc/group then when you listdir the file tree,   
   instead pf seeing lisa:lisa or paul:paul, you will be shown   
   numbers when no names exist for them 1000:1000 . And that's   
   your first sign when working on Linux/Unix file systems,   
   that you've "screwed up". Sometimes, you can use mount options   
   to handle numbering issues in a gross way.   
      
   But at some point, you may need to do a "chown -R lisa:lisa"   
   and some flavor of "chmod" if the default permissions mask   
   was wrong on the previous OS.   
      
   The summary then, is yes, if mixing nuts and bolts from   
   old computers, you have to be aware of the pitfalls. It   
   seems, when I did my Google search, that a good percentage   
   of the users are behaving like they don't know these things.   
      
   When I started on UNIX platform, there were two experienced   
   users. They answered my first two questions. Then they   
   told me to go off to the computer book store, and   
   "get the C shell book" and "get the Bourne shell book".   
   The second one was a tall ask, as the book was out of   
   print, but the C Shell was still in print. And it explained   
   chown and chmod, and by emphasizing these things as   
   important first steps, then the idea these things matter,   
   sticks with you. If instead, you've just installed Linux   
   and started browsing with Firefox, there is no time or   
   opportunity to learn anything. And you are operating   
   a computer, without any "guiding model" of how things work.   
      
   I know home is "break-able", and I have observed, while   
   testing distros, that on some occasions, their behavior   
   would have broken a separately mounted /home. As long as   
   you know that can happen, that's the first step.   
      
   We had a few mounts at work, that went sideways on us   
   like that. What a mess :-) If you have NIS or YP   
   (the equivalent in a very limited way, of a Windows domain),   
   then account "Paul" is the same everywhere. The Paul account   
   already exists. If security escorts Paul out of the building,   
   then one command to close the Paul account, and 1000:1000   
   pops up where Paul used to be. Home Linux machines don't   
   have that discipline that I can see. I'm sure someone   
   will explain how it could be set up. I've never done it here.   
      
   Only two users had passwords to work on NIS or YP at my work,   
   the idea being, if one was hit by a bus, the second person   
   would still show up for work. Look both ways before   
   stepping in front of a bus. Especially if you're a senior IT   
   person, and the operating model predicts that your peer   
   will be hit by a bus.   
      
      Paul   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)