Changing current directory of root

[Jagadesh]

How can i set the current directory of root to /usr. When i say
#cd
it should go to /usr directory.

Thanks
Jagadesh

[Stuart Browne]

You want to change the home directory for the user 'root' ? You'll need to modify /etc/passwd, changing where it says '/root' (6th field, : delimited) on the line starting with 'root:x:0:0:...' to be '/usr', write, and save.

WARNING: Manually changing the 'passwd' file is a dangerous task. You should make a backup of the passwd file first, and ensure you can log in ON ANOTHER SESSION prior to closing the current session.

[Mark Grant]

"cd" take syou to your HOME directory so you would need to change roots home directory which probably isn't a good idea particularly as you can't guarantee a /usr file system when you boot linux.

Maybe your best solution is to make an alias as in

alias "ucd=cd /usr"

[Huc_1]

I am not sure I understand you !
But if what you want is to change to an other directory then then yes alias could help you out.

Put this alias in one ./basbrc like ex:

alias myr="cd /usr/root"

this will then be there each time you start a new session.

You could also make this as a function like ex:

myr()
{
cd /usr/root
}

I prefer making a library of function (just a file full of functions I execute from .bashrc

But I feel one should limit the use of alias and such because it can get very messy and you soon forget how a system mormaly reacts

I once saw I user with more then 200 (alias, in is login that then complaind he could not control it !

OK but one or two if it makes life easy why not.

Hope this helps

J-P

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hello Jagadesh,

if this is a serious problem for you, then you might just use the root account for too much of your daily work. Most of the time you should be able to use a normal account and there you can set your home to whatever you like without any risk to system integrity.

Greetings, Martin

[Nat Guyton]

If you want to do this without changing the root home directory, you can do this on a shell-by-shell basis simply by:

HOME=/usr
export HOME

Then for that shell only, when you type "cd" you will go where you want. Cron jobs, other scripts, etc, will not be affected.

[Patrick Van Humbeeck]

or you could add another user to the password file with UID 0, so root's home would be unchanged but this new user would have root access too and a different home dir.

[Dan Copeland]

This is not adviseable but you just need to edit the /etc/passwd file and change the home of root to /usr. whenever you type cd then it would be /usr