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tacos_tacos_tacos
Asked: 2012-06-14 08:06:47 +0800 CST

In Linux, why isn't superuser root's folder under /home?

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You can create a user that has privileges like root, and it's home directory will fall under /home/username. Why does root get its own folder at the top level of the file system? Is this just convention, a security concern, or is there a performance-related reason?

hard-drive linux partition filesystems

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    One reason: On many systems, /home is on a separate partition (or network share) that might fail to mount and it is a good idea to allow root to login with his usual environment whenever possible.

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  2. root's home should be on the partition that the operating system resides on, which by definition is /, so that you can still login as root without issues if, say, another disk partitions are unavailable. /home is sometimes mounted on a separate partition or a separate drive. If this contains the root homedir and is offline, you may encounter difficulties with your login shell. Not a good idea if you're trying to fix things as the root user.

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