[Lias] /etc/skel

[Phil Scarratt]

Simon Bryan wrote:

> Hi all,
> At least I woke this list up today!!   :-)
> 

Indeed . . . been rather quiet for awhile...

> On the issue of the /etc/skel - it copies the directories and files, but the panle
> items and desktop layout are not copied and are simply the default ones.
> 
> I set up a user as required (called student), then did
> cp -rf /home/student  /etc/skel
> to copy the directories such as Open Office then
> cp -rf /home/student/.* /etc/skel
> to get all the dot files and directories, however not only did it copy all the dot
> files but all the directoires one level up in /home!!! When I found this happening i
> changed the procedure to delete /etc/skel and then
> mv /home/student /etc/skel
> chown -R root.root /etc/skel/
> 

I think you'll find it copied the directories in /home because of the .* 
wild card - this would include the /home/student/.. directory and hence 
directories in /home get copied. cp -rf should copy all dot files anway...

> Now when I create a user the files are all copied from /etc/skel but the menus and
> panel options seem to be coming from somewhere else. For instance 'student' has Open
> Office in their 'favourites' menu and Galeon is on the panel, but when I create a
> new user neither of these things happen.
> 

I assume you're still with Gnome (what version?). According to the 
session management part of the Administrator's Guide 
(http://www.gnome.org/learn/admin-guide/2.2/):

<QUOTE>
6.2. Setting Session Defaults
The following table lists the files that contain default session 
information:

File:
/usr/share/gnome/default.session
Description:
Default session file. Default session details are stored in this file.
File:
$HOME/.gnome2/session
Description:
User session file. When a user modifies the session, the details are 
stored in this file.

To set default session details for all users, modify the default session 
file.

To restore the default session settings for a user, delete the session 
file from the home directory of the user. If no user session file is 
present, the default settings in /usr/share/gnome/default.session are used.

To save the current session as the default session, users can run the 
gnome-session-save command.
</QUOTE>


> I did have skel=/etc/skel umask=0077 in the call to pam_mkhomedir.so, taking them
> out has made no difference so habe left them out (I think they are the defaults).
> 
> Does this give anybody any ideas?
> 
> Remember this is an LTSP server using winbind to authenticate users, the users home
> directory is setup with pam_mkhomedir.so on first login. We are running gdm (is that
> why we default to Gnome?)
> 
> Cheers,
> ____________________
> Simon Bryan
> IT Manager
> OLMC Parramatta
> _______________________________________________
> lias mailing list
> lias at lists.linux.org.au
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo/lias

hope this helps

Fil