On Fri, Dec 17, 2004 at 03:17:22PM +0100, Beppe wrote: > Maciek R. wrote: > >how do I change my current user name on Linux? I there a way to rename > >it (with all folders and the whole stuf)? > > > As superuser: > - rename your home/old_user to home/new_user > - create new_user without creating home dir > - # chown -r new_user:new_user home/new_user This approach will work, but... a drawback to this approach is that it destroys the continuity of the user id and group id of any of this user's files which are stored anywhere except the user's home directory. For example, backups, or even floppies or some flash media devices where Linux compatible file systems have been created. If this happens, the user would no longer own or be able to read their own files. To prevent that problem, it might be a better ides to have the user keep their original user ID and group ID but change the user's name in the passwd and group files using the vipw command and the "vi /etc/group command" Both the first method and this second one have a drawback when reading tar files. In a tar file the file owner's name is stored as a string, which will no longer match the owner's user name in both cases, but this is easily worked around. -- Linux/Open Source: Your infrastructure belongs to you, free, forever. Idealism: "Realism applied over a longer time period" http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/ http://kinz.org http://www.fedoratracker.org http://www.fedorafaq.org http://www.fedoranews.org Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. ~ ~ ~ ~
