From:    Adrian Pepper 
To:    mpatters@cs.uwaterloo.ca
Cc:    wcwince@cscf.cs.uwaterloo.ca
Subject:    Re:  moving home directory locations
Date:    Mon, 4 Oct 2004 14:07:55 -0400 (EDT)

> From mpatters@williams.cscf.uwaterloo.ca Mon Oct  4 13:44:06 2004
> Subject: Re:  moving home directory locations
> From: Mike Patterson 
> To: Bill Ince 
> Cc: arpepper@cs.uwaterloo.ca
> Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 13:44:03 -0400
> 
> On Mon, 2004-10-04 at 12:52 -0400, Bill Ince wrote:
> 
> > Hmmm, I recall Ray observing that some things use absolute paths, e.g.
> >   - application configuration
> >     - e.g. ~/.netscape/preferences.js
> >   - backups
> >   - .snapshot's
> >   - user owned symbolic links might
> >   - ???
> 
> The backups issue is a good point, but I don't know how that could be
> worked around.  That would seem to me to be a weakness in the way Legato
> does things (perhaps).  I doubt it checks files for uniqueness before
> slamming them onto the tape.  I could leave a "stub" in /fsys2/u2 for
> them (ie, leave /fsys2/u2/l6chen there and writable) so that way if they
> need an older version of a file, they can always go back and get it in
> the old location, then move it to where they need it.  (I'm thinking out
> loud there; if my thoughts seem wrong or incorrect, please let me know.)

A common (perhaps standard) thing to do is create

/u2/l6chen -> /u4/l6chen

This lets old absolute paths work.
I'm not sure how networker works with that.
Leaving /fsys2/u2/l6chen/ would probably give them more "quota" than
intended (perhaps).

> So maybe I'll move my own filespace first, and see if anything explodes.
> I expect it won't since I don't use softbase for much beyond a launchpad
> for suw.  :-)
> 
> Would either of you like to know if I do, in fact, run into problems, so
> we can document the traps (or lack thereof)?  I'll let them know that
> they will need to check on symlinks themselves.

Yes, at this point feedback/documentation is important for building
up a human knowledge base.

You can move my home directory too.
There shouldn't be anything important there which isn't reproducible.

Mostly it's various web page demonstrations.

So I did this:

1. cd /fsys2/u2
2. rsync -a -v mpatterson /fsys4/u4
3. rm -r mpatterson
4. vipw, and change /u2/mpatterson to /u4/mpatterson
5. So far so good. I can log in. My mozilla profile may have been borked though.
6. Following Adrian's suggestion: ln -s /u4/mpatterson mpatterson

Bill points out that backups may be affected. We don't know how smart Legato is. But the following looks promising:

@softbase[112]% cd /u2/mpatterson
@softbase[113]% pwd
/fsys4/u4/mpatterson
@softbase[114]% recover
/fsys4/u4/mpatterson/ not in index
 will exit.
Enter directory to browse: /u2/mpatterson
recover.arch: Current working directory is /fsys2/u2/mpatterson/
recover> 

Something else to keep in mind is NFS exports: don't forget to add the new filesystem to the list of exports, and don't forget to mount it on client machines.

Adrian adds:

softbase.math% recover
recover.arch: Current working directory is /fsys2/u2/arpepper/
recover> cd /u
recover> versions mpatterson

Versions of `/u/mpatterson':

   1 lrwxrwxrwx root     other          22 Oct 04 17:22  mpatterson -> ../fsys4/u4/mpatterson
     save time:  Tue Oct  5 04:13:21 2004        
      location:  23005 at lto_jukebox.mfcf

   1 lrwxrwxrwx root     other          22 Apr 25 2003  mpatterson -> ../fsys2/u2/mpatterson
     save time:  Mon Aug 23 07:07:42 2004        
      location:  73032 at lto_jukebox.mfcf

   1 lrwxrwxrwx root     other          22 Apr 25 2003  mpatterson -> ../fsys2/u2/mpatterson
     save time:  Mon Apr 26 00:38:28 2004        
      location:  73025 at lto_jukebox.mfcf

   1 lrwxrwxrwx root     other          22 Apr 25 2003  mpatterson -> ../fsys2/u2/mpatterson
     save time:  Sun Dec 21 17:42:22 2003        
      location:  73013 at lto_jukebox.mfcf

   1 lrwxrwxrwx root     other          22 Apr 25 2003  mpatterson -> ../fsys2/u2/mpatterson
     save time:  Thu Aug 28 21:17:54 2003        
      location:  73008 at lto_jukebox.mfcf

Display more versions of `/u/mpatterson' [y]? n

recover> quit
softbase.math%