useradd -d and -b

[dman777]

I am having trouble understanding exactly what useradd -d and -b and other than the man page I haven't seen much about these options. Can anyone give me examples on how they would be used?

[Sadako]

The man page seems perfectly clear to me, but I'll try put it in my own words.

-b, or --base-dir, is by default "/home".
If you wanted a user's home directory to be created elsewhere, this is what you'd use to change it.
For example, `useradd -g users -m -b /export hopeless` would create the hopeless account with the home directory "/export/hopeless" rather than "/home/hopeless".

-d just enables you to have the home directory of a new user set to something other than that users login name, for example with `useradd -g users -m -d foo hopeless`, the home directory of new user hopeless would be "/home/foo" rather than "/home/hopeless".

Basically, they just allow you to manipulate the sixth entry of the /etc/passwd file, enabling you to have a user's home directory in a non-standard location if you so desire.

HTH.

On the other hand, if you already got the above and were just wondering why or when such options would be used, in most cases the wouldn't, unless you think you have use for it yourself don't worry about it.
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