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Instead, you get NOTHING!!! It is as if it never existed. Since you copied everything to /home/username, you expect to see your new home directory when doing ls /home after you reboot.
Symlinker osx mac os x#
When you reboot, Mac OS X seems to think that you are creating a new user, so it will overwrite all of your user preferences in your old /Users/username directory. You can have this working for as long as your mac does not crash or reboot. If you move /home to /home.old, and symlink /home, it will remove the symlink /home. If you manage to remove /home, it will reappear after you reboot. I tried this before and got it working for about a week until I rebooted. I don't know how future OS updates will deal with this, though. The intended application appears to be that, if your Mac is connected to a directory service, going to /home/jdoe will cause the automounter to mount jdoe's home directory there.īased on this, it seems logical to conclude that if you don't intend to connect your Mac to a directory service, you're probably okay removing the /home auto-mount as detailed in this comment. If you read up on auto_master at its man page, you'll find that using an executable program for a map results in that program being called to look up a URL to mount, which is in turn mounted in-place. If you take a look at /etc/auto_home, you'll see this line: +/usr/libexec/od_user_homesįollow the trail one more step to the od_user_homes man page, and you'll find a program whose purpose is to take a username, look it up in Open Directory, and return a URL to that user's home directory. If you first type mount in Terminal to show active mounts, you'll see this line: map auto_home on /home (autofs, automounted, nobrowse)Īutofs maps are defined in /etc/auto_master, and /home is in turn defined specifically in /etc/auto_home. If you would like these users to have access to both the symlink and the items it references, you’ll need to move the referenced item inside the shared folder.I regret this answer is not exactly authoritative, since I've never actually done this myself-though I have used a similar automounter on other Unix systems-but here's my understanding as to what /home is used for on OS X. Users with access to the shared folder may no longer have access to the content referenced by these symlinks-they will only be able to see the symlink file. Any changes made to items in the original location the symlink referenced will no longer sync to your Dropbox account. Why do I have a folder named “Shared Symlink Backups”?Īny items that were synced to your Dropbox account via a symlink that was within a shared folder and that linked outside of a shared Dropbox folder prior to mid-2019 can be found in a new folder named Shared Symlink Backups. If you still want to sync the original item, we recommend adding that item to your Dropbox account instead of the symlink.īy default, this folder will be unchecked in your selective sync preferences. Why does my folder say “Symlink Backup Copy”?Īny items that were synced to your Dropbox account via a symlink that linked outside of your Dropbox folder prior to mid-2019 can be found in a copy of the folder appended with ( Symlink Backup Copy). However, they aren’t recommended for referencing Dropbox from a different location on your computer, or referencing a different location on your computer from Dropbox. Symlinks (symbolic links), aliases, shortcuts, junction points, resource forks, and networked folders can be used in the Dropbox folder on your computer to reference other files in the Dropbox folder on your computer.
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