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I do not have an IT background. I am working things out on my own, so I would really appreciate your help on this as I am in a panic at the moment.

I wanted to increase the size of my /home directory (as a normal user). I followed the steps provided below by Ari: How to shrink /home and add more space on CentOS7

However, after following the steps (except that I saved the backup in the /root (as superuser), I could no longer login back to my account.

When I used the GUI to login, my password was accepted by the system. But then the screen turns blank and then I am sent back to the login screen. When I checked /etc/passwd, I could see my account name and home directory as /home/myname.

Can I still recover my account? I have very important files and software. What should I do?

The following is the original post by Ari:

As others have pointed out, XFS filesystem cannot be shrunk.

So your best bet is to backup /home, remove and recreate its volume in a smaller size and give the rest to your /root volume just as Koen van der Rijt outlined in his post.

• backup the contents of /home

tar -czvf /root/home.tgz -C /home . • test the backup

tar -tvf /root/home.tgz • unmount home

umount /dev/mapper/centos-home • remove the home logical volume

lvremove /dev/mapper/centos-home • recreate a new 400GB logical volume for /home, format and mount it

lvcreate -L 400GB -n home centos mkfs.xfs /dev/centos/home mount /dev/mapper/centos-home • extend your /root volume with ALL of the remaining space and resize (-r) the file system while doing so

lvextend -r -l +100%FREE /dev/mapper/centos-root • restore your backup

tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home • check /etc/fstab for any mapping of /home volume. IF it is using UUID you should update the UUID portion. (Since we created a new volume, UUID has changed)

newaminal
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  • You were able to execute the lv commands "as a normal user" ? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 10:14
  • I changed to su before performing the lv commands. When I did: tar -tvf /root/home.tgz, I could still see the files, but when changed to `su`, I could see the home.tgz backup file but I could not login back to my original user account. – newaminal Nov 02 '20 at 10:18
  • I'm checking the post by Ari. Can you come up with the exact commands you executed? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 11:01
  • Does lvs show you the new /home ? "Can I still recover my account?" As long as you keep the tar. – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 11:09
  • Thanks. Apparently, I can't get the terminal history in the user account because I cannot login anymore. The tar file looks very small in size. – newaminal Nov 02 '20 at 11:42
  • Perhaps you skipped a couple of points, like eg. "tar -tvf /root/home.tgz" ? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 13:04
  • The commands you executed should be in root's history, no? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 13:05
  • I did not skip "tar -tvf /root/home.tgz" I did the "tar -czvf /root/home.tgz -C /home . " in the local user, not the root Does this make the problem? – newaminal Nov 02 '20 at 13:34
  • I find it hard to believe "tar -czvf /root/home.tgz -C /home . " can be executed (without error) by a normal user, because a normal user should not be able to create a file in /root. So, when you did the "tar -tvf", what did you get? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 14:01

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Your best option is to recover /home from a backup, I'm sure you'll have one since /home contains "very important files and software".

Gerard H. Pille
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  • Thank you @Gerard. I just created a new user and recovered my files from the new /home of the new user account. – newaminal Nov 02 '20 at 14:33
  • How can your files be in the home of a new user? A new user has no files at all? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 02 '20 at 15:02
  • What I mean is I created a new user and gave that user administrator privileges, then I just started from scratch. Most of my large files are in another drive, so I could still access them from the new user's home. But I could not find the files saved in the lost user's home--some of them are important. I wonder because when I did an `ls -lht` command, the backup showed only 20 (without a unit. Does that mean 20kb? It's rather small considering the size of my lost user's /home directory. – newaminal Nov 02 '20 at 23:55
  • "ls" doesn't go into subdirectories if you don't say it should. So, what was in the tar file? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 03 '20 at 00:09
  • The backup of my "lost" user's /home should be in the tar file as expected, after following Ari's post? – newaminal Nov 03 '20 at 00:56
  • Yes, but I'm not asking what should be in it. I'd like to know what it does contain. – Gerard H. Pille Nov 03 '20 at 03:09
  • It has some of my important files like notes in doing many bioinformatics codes. – newaminal Nov 03 '20 at 07:51
  • OK, so be it. I don't understand how you could create that tar as a normal user. Or did the old user also have "administrator privileges"? That term is from Windows, not Linux. – Gerard H. Pille Nov 03 '20 at 08:08
  • Yes, the old user also had administrator (sudo) privileges. – newaminal Nov 03 '20 at 08:45
  • You could have mentioned the sudo a bit earlier. In that case you must have skipped the "tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home". That's the command that would have restored the old user. It should still work. – Gerard H. Pille Nov 03 '20 at 09:55
  • Thank you, Gerard. I did the `tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home .` using the sudo privilege. But I could not login to the account after recovery. I think there are some links missing. I am a bit frustrated with this. I may just have to give up the files there. I appreciate your kind time, though! – newaminal Nov 03 '20 at 10:31
  • Each morning, you should repeat fifty times before the mirror: "Today I will make not typos when logged in as root". Do you notice the difference between "tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home ." (newanimal, sorry, newaminal version) and "tar -xzvf /root/home.tgz -C /home" (Ari version), or is your eyesight as bad as mine? – Gerard H. Pille Nov 03 '20 at 12:10
  • Thanks. I would definitely learn from each mistake. Sometimes they come with a price, though. Appreciate your time, Gerard~ – newaminal Nov 04 '20 at 02:56