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Exam Question

Double ZDouble Z
edited September 2007 in Technology
I have an exam in a few minutes and I’ve been told that the following question is going to be in it.  What happens when you create a user in Linux, but you don’t create his home directory?
I’m looking up the answer on the internet, but I figured if someone already knew the answer it would be much appreciated.
Thanks, and wish me luck.

Comments

  • AndrewAndrew
    Isn't that cheating...?
  • Double ZDouble Z
    Well...
    I'm not at the exam right now, and there is no guarantee that this exact question is going to be on it.
  • AprecheApreche
    edited September 2007
    The question is not specific enough. Depending on your system, and depending on how you created the user, a home folder may or may not be automatically created for them in a default location. If a user has a home directory set, but the home directory does not exist, what happens when that user logs in will depend on the user's login shell. On my Ubuntu it will set HOME=/ with the default login shell of /bin/sh (bash). On another system, or with another shell, who can say what the default behavior will be? Now, for the sake of experimentation I also just tried to create a user that not only does not have a home directory that exists, but does not have a home directory set at all in /etc/passwd. The same thing happened. There might also be an issue if someone uses a different authentication mechanism besides /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow. If someone were to use mysql or windows authentication mechanism, it might not even be possible to avoid setting a default home directory.

    The question is the fail.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • Double ZDouble Z
    Thanks, that is what I thought based on what I could find out online, besides turns out the question isn't on the exam, oh and it is definitely not cheating, the exam is online and I can use whatever I want.
  • Double ZDouble Z
    edited September 2007
    I got a 100!!  ^_^
    Post edited by Double Z on
  • SailSail
    Why even give an exam if you're just gonna let your students look up all the answers? Why not just give everyone an A and save the trouble of writing one?
  • m16 elitestm16 elitest
    Why watch Jeopardy? Think about it.
  • SailSail
    Why watch Jeopardy? Think about it.
    That comment makes no sense. First of all, you aren't been graded on how many questions you get right when you watch Jeopardy. Secondly, you don't have enough time to look up the answers when you watch Jeopardy.
  • m16 elitestm16 elitest
    edited September 2007
    I meant there isn't any point to it, besides the hope that you'll acquire knowledge in the process of watching Jeopardy or searching for the answers to an exam.
    Post edited by m16 elitest on
  • SailSail
    Wasn't the point that there isn't any point my point?
  • JasonJason
    I think he's saying that tests are superficial, and what really counts is that you found the information to begin with. If you had to look it up to get it right on the test, you still learned the content.
  • SailSail
    image
  • Double ZDouble Z
    Well, I asked the teacher about the question with the creating users in Linux and he said that the answer was that there was no answer. You see must of the questions in the exam were about, I don’t want to say superficial questions, but they were questions about the role of a system administrator, or a CTO, a CIO, stuff that either is common sense or all the information was already on the class notes. The real point of the class is trying to get us students interested in all this, all of the rumors about questions regarding Linux shell commands, the questions with not real answers was just to get us in front of the computer trying out stuff. With all of the other “extra” stuff, there is no point in making students memorize things if the information is all out there, the real test was to see who would be curios enough to try and find the answers out there.
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