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From: John-Paul Stewart <jpstewart@personalprojects.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: "7 deprecated Linux commands you need to stop using - and what to use instead"
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:51:35 -0500
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On 2026-01-23 6:33 p.m., Nuno Silva wrote:
> 
> What's still puzzling me here is that passwd and shadow are under /etc,
> so... login should work regardless of /home being mounted or not?
It depends on the setting of DEFAULT_HOME in /etc/login.defs.  If it is
set to "no" the login attempt will fail in the absence of their home
directory.  If set to "yes", the login attempt will succeed and the user
will land in / instead of $HOME.

So the behaviour can be controlled by the system administrator.