Is it Possible to let multiple Users share the same home directory in Linux

It may be possible but I think you'll end up with some crazy permissions problems in the end since the user's UID's will be conflicting and it would be more trouble than it's worth.

But, what you could do is have the files you need to be in common for the users relocated and use symbolic links.

So, each user's documents, desktop and whatever else can point to something like /home/common/documents and the user's documents directories would be symbolic links that point to the directories.

In this case the users will keep their typical unique libraries but share the necessary files.

I know you can use identical home directories for FTP and SSH like you've tried here by creating the group and applying the 770 permissions to everything but I don't think you're going to have much luck with actually having them login using the gui. Somebody else may have more insight on that setup.

apoligies RBEIMS should've refreshed before sending.

The requirement is not clear. Do you need to give them the same login dir because they share the files and applications in that dir, or because you don't want to have a separate home dir for each one on the system?

If it is the first one, then you can let them all work from the same dir by setting some env variables and changing to that dir in their .profile files.

You're overthinking the problem...

Put all of your developers into one Linux group, then give the "common" home folder group permissions (including sgid)

1) Create your common group
    groupadd ds-users

2) Make each user have this group as their default group & share the same login directory
    HOMEPATH=/home/users/shared  # or wherever it will be located
    for u in user1 user2 user3 ... ; do
       usermod -d $HOMEPATH -g ds-users $u
    done

3) Change the permissions on the folder so that all of these users have write permissions
    chgrp -R ds-users $HOMEPATH
    find $HOMEPATH -type d -exec chmod g+rwxs,o+t '{}' \;
    find $HOMEPATH -type f -exec chmod g+rw '{}' \;


NOTE: The s permission for the group means all files created in that (those) folders will have the same group (ds-users), and the t permission means that files cannot be deleted except by the owner (which will continue to be someone different for each user) or someone who has write permission to the file (not just the folder). Finally, users will remain free to change permissions on their own files (or folders) to make them "private", should they so desire.

I hope this helps!

Dan
IT4SOHO

Hey, Thanks for all the suggestions      -  I will try them out as soon as I get me a Test PC up and running again (shouldn't take to long :P ).

I some how managed to break my Authentication or something. I changed something somewhere (actually a few things in a few places and I didn't keep track of the changes :P ) after the changes It didn't want me to login with my normal users and the one console I had a user logged in on if I do ID it resturns everything fine except the User ID was 0 - so I think I broke something.

But none the less I will get a new TEST box up, try the suggestions and post what works and what doesn't :P

Hey

THx Dan, I got it working as you suggested - SSH home directories is working, but the GUI logon through KDE it still gives the error "could not start kstartupconfig. Check your installation".

The owner of the home directory can logon no problem, but if the user is not the owner he or she can';t login (even though the group settings are set and correct).

:( Starting to believe it isn't possible - any more ideas?

check the permissions of the "hidden" files in the folder -- normally they will be set to owner rwx only, and in this case you'll need for the same permissions to be available to the group...

The 3 commands below will find ALL of the files in a folder (and below) and will add all user permissions to the current group permissions:

  find .??* -perm -400 -exec chmod g+r '{}' \;
  find .??* -perm -200 -exec chmod g+w '{}' \;
  find .??* -perm -100 -exec chmod g+x '{}' \;

The one "permission" I skipped is the SGID -- the user version (SUID) should NOT be set (unless you want all files within the folder to be owned by just one user), but the SGID should definitely be set (to force files created in those folders to be owned by the group.

With all that said, GUI interfaces make TONS of assumptions about login environments... it MAY turn out that you want to have separate login folders for each user (so they can have their own GUI settings), but a shared "project" folder... in which case:
 1) Create separate login folders for each user, separate from the "project" folder
 2) Create a symbolic link in each "home" folder to the "project" folder
     ln -s /path/to/project ~username
     (the ~username will be changed by the shell to the HOME folder of the user named after the ~ character)

Now, if you want to be REALLY tricky, take away user write permission on the login folder (but leave it on the GUI's . folders) -- then users cannot create new files or folders in their own home directory, but can move to the project folder and work there.

I hope this helps -- you'll either think "WOW" or "WTMI" (way too much information)... I hope it's the WOW! :-)

Dan
IT4SOHO

Well Dan (IT4SOHO) so far I am thinking WOW :)  - thx for the advice thus far.

I ain't the most clued up Linux User, but just correct me if I am understanding you incorrectly (I aint to sure what you meant by the SUID and SGID stuff you mentioned)   :P

From what I can gather we are thinking in the same direction (I hope so :P), but what I did so far is make a homepath script that I can run and just changing the users required in the file.
The Code Snippet is the script I run - put together from the commands/suggestions given in above posts. When I run the script, it gives the following as the output:
__________
usermod: no changes
usermod: no changes
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/socket-monarch-deb64VM1'
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/tmp-monarch-deb64VM1'
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/socket-monarch-deb64VM1'
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/tmp-monarch-deb64VM1'
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/socket-monarch-deb64VM1'
chmod: cannot operate on dangling symlink `/home/ds/.kde/tmp-monarch-deb64VM1'
__________


Also when I try to login to the GUI now after running the script, It doesn't give any error, but the screen flashes black for a second and then returns back to the login screen (it does it for both the users I am testing with "ds2" and "ds3" as it is in the script I posted).
Below is the output from /var/log/auth.log for the login attempts (2 failed for the ds2 and ds3 user and one successful for the ds user).
Is there a reason why it shows the uid as being 0?
__________
Aug 17 09:09:41 monarch-deb64VM1 kdm: :0[9586]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user ds2 by (uid=0)
Aug 17 09:09:42 monarch-deb64VM1 kdm: :0[9586]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session closed for user ds2
Aug 17 09:09:50 monarch-deb64VM1 kdm: :0[10579]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user ds3 by (uid=0)
Aug 17 09:09:50 monarch-deb64VM1 kdm: :0[10579]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session closed for user ds3
Aug 17 09:32:40 monarch-deb64VM1 kdm: :0[10609]: pam_unix(kdm:session): session opened for user ds by (uid=0)
__________

usermod -a -G ds-users ds2               #Add users to ds-users group
usermod -a -G ds-users ds3               #Add users to ds-users group
 
HOMEPATH=/home/ds                        #Homepath Directory
        for u in ds2 ds3 ; do
                usermod -d $HOMEPATH -g ds-users $u
done
 
chgrp -R ds-users $HOMEPATH              #Set group on HomePath
    find $HOMEPATH -type d -exec chmod g+rwxs,o+t '{}' \;
    find $HOMEPATH -type f -exec chmod g+rw '{}' \;
 
#Change/Duplicate permissions on home hidden files for user to group
    find $HOMEPATH/.??* -perm -400 -exec chmod g+r '{}' \;
    find $HOMEPATH/.??* -perm -200 -exec chmod g+w '{}' \;
    find $HOMEPATH/.??* -perm -100 -exec chmod g+x '{}' \;
                                              

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Well never really got this working - Thanks for all the tips and advice given