Adding users - Must there be a home directory?

[Lucien]

I'm just getting started setting up my FreeNAS box and am looking at setting up user accounts. When I add a new user to the system (following the docs here: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Users ), do all users *have* to have a home directory? I plan to use my NAS to store rips and photos in shared pools over CIFS, and don't intend to have user specific storage folders.

With reference to this bug report - https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/3346 - it looks like if I were to set the home directory to say /mnt/volume1/photos, it would create a folder for each user in that location, which is not what I want.

If a home directory is a must, could I simply create them under /mnt/volume1/home and *not* share them via CIFS?

 

[danb35]

Yes, you must specify a home directory. However, it need not exist. The system defaults to /nonexistent, which is fine.

 

[Lucien]

Thanks. I was under the impression that /nonexistent was reserved system accounts only. (Which would make it odd that it's an option....)