I would like to know whether there is any simple shell command to change the user home directory in Linux/Unix (one similar to chsh which changes the default login shell of an existing valid user) without touching the /etc/passwd file. Thanks

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7 Answers

Ibrahim's comment on the other answer is the correct way to alter an existing user's home directory.

Change the user's home directory:

usermod -d /newhome/username username

usermod is the command to edit an existing user.
-d (abbreviation for --home) will change the user's home directory.

Change the user's home directory + Move the contents of the user's current directory:

usermod -m -d /newhome/username username

-m (abbreviation for --move-home) will move the content from the user's current directory to the new directory.

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From Linux Change Default User Home Directory While Adding A New User:

Simply open this file using a text editor, type:

vi /etc/default/useradd

The default home directory defined by HOME variable, find line that read as follows:

HOME=/home

Replace with:

HOME=/iscsi/user

Save and close the file. Now you can add user using regular useradd command:

# useradd vivek
# passwd vivek

Verify user information:

# finger vivek

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The accepted answer is faulty, since the contents from the initial user folder are not moved using it. I am going to add another answer to correct it:

sudo usermod -d /newhome/username -m username

You don't need to create the folder with username and this will also move your files from the initial user folder to /newhome/username folder.

In case other readers look for information on the adduser command.

Edit /etc/adduser.conf

Set DHOME variable

You can do it with:

/etc/passwd

Edit the user home directory and then move the required files and directories to it:

cp/mv -r /home/$user/.bash* /home/newdir
.bash_profile
.ssh/ 

Set the correct permission

chmod -R $user:$user /home/newdir/.bash*

Found out that this breaks some applications, the better way to do it is

In addition to symlink, on more recent distros and filesystems, as root you can also use bind-mount:

mkdir /home/username
mount --bind --verbose /extra-home/username /home/username

This is useful for allowing access "through" the /home directory to subdirs via daemons that are otherwise configured to avoid pathing through symlinks (apache, ftpd, etc.).

You have to remember (or init script) to bind upon restarts, of course.

An example init script in /etc/fstab is

/extra-home/username /home/username none defaults,bind 0 0

usermod -m -d /newhome username

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