Cannot change to my home directory during login

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 5:01pm

Hi,

if I login to console I end up in /. If I login with sddm I get logged out again immediately. Both logins leave messages about cannot cd because my home directory does not exist.

It is a new install with no important data, So I created a new user with
useradd -m newuser which has the same problem.

After login on console I can cd to the home directory without problem and see all files. File access looks unsuspicious to me:

❯ ls -lag /dev/shm/home/joachim
drwxr-xr-x@    - joachim 100  18 Jan 17:24  .
drwxr-xr-x     - root    root 18 Jan 17:16  ..
drwx------@    - joachim 100  24 Sep  2025  .cache
drwx------@    - joachim 100  24 Sep  2025  .config
drwx------@    - joachim 100  18 Jan 01:31  .local
.rw-------@   58 joachim 100  18 Jan 17:24 󱆃 .bash_history
.rw-r-----@  604 joachim 100  11 Dez  2025 󱆃 .bashrc
.rw-r--r--@ 1,6k joachim 100  11 Nov  2025  .emacs
.rw-r--r--@  599 joachim 100   1 Sep  2022  .i18n
.rw-r--r--@  861 joachim 100  11 Nov  2025 󱁻 .inputrc
.rw-r-----@  856 joachim 100  11 Dez  2025 󱆃 .profile
.rw-r--r--@ 2,0k joachim 100   1 Sep  2022  .xim.template

Only thing out of normal new tumbleweed install was, I had a lot of trouble finding a partition layout that grub was able to boot tumbleweed from and while cleaning up partition mess, I also deleted the home partition. I recreated it and adapted the blockid in /etc/fstab (from a cachyos live iso, if that matters), deleted my user and recreated it as well.
That is when this login trouble started.

So, the question is: why can a xfs home directory created with cachyos not be used on tumbleweed? Is there some security mechanism going on?

hui · January 18, 2026, 5:10pm

The content of the fstab would be interesting.

knurpht · January 18, 2026, 5:12pm

As you can see, the group is not OK, hence it shows only 100,

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 5:16pm

caba1:~ # cat /etc/fstab
UUID=bad49b5e-1830-4131-a992-1d2882db954b  /          ext4  defaults         0  1
UUID=4299-20EB                             /boot/efi  vfat  utf8,dmask=0077  0  2
UUID=38599f26-eb48-47b8-9c1a-b2434ef14dc1  swap       swap  defaults         0  0
UUID=4562b270-288b-46f8-a4dc-89c579623dfa  /home      xfs   defaults         0  0

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 5:19pm

The ls is done on cachyos which does not have a group with id 100. But it has my user with the same uid 1000.
Anyways the group ownership should not influence the ability to cd to it

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 5:30pm

to take cachyos out of the equation I now have

logged in as root on tumbleweed
deleted the test user and my user joachim (all users)
unmounted /home
deleted home partition
recreated xfs /home partition and adapted /etc/fstab
mounted /home
created user joachim again
user can still not log in to gui session with sddm
user can login on console with this message:

knurpht · January 18, 2026, 5:32pm

It is pretty confusing that you only tell afterwards that output comes from cachyos or from TW.

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 5:42pm

sorry, wasn’t my intention. I assumed it is impossible to copy&paste stuff into a browser to post it to the forum without a gui session so I thought this is obvious. It is not. I now realized I still can run a gui session as root.

knurpht · January 18, 2026, 6:05pm

Sure you can, as long as the paste makes clear where it is coming from.

malcolmlewis · January 18, 2026, 6:26pm

@joba1 $HOME should be owned by “username:username” not “username:users”, eg “joachim:joachim”

knurpht · January 18, 2026, 6:26pm

Please show grep joachim /etc/passwd . Also, as your user, show LANG=C id.

knurpht · January 18, 2026, 6:40pm

That is only for the 1st created user:

knurpht@Lenovo-P16:~/Install/ISO> ls -l /home/
totaal 0
drwx------ 1 beheerder beheerder  354 18 feb  2025 beheerder
drwxr-xr-x 1 knurpht   users     4770 15 jan 02:36 knurpht
knurpht@Lenovo-P16:~/Install/ISO>

FWIW: User beheerder ( NL for admin ) is always from the initial install. User knurpht is added when system and DE setup are done, and only restore of /home/knurpht remains.

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 8:02pm

joachim:x:1000:100:Joachim:/home/joachim:/bin/bash

uid=1000(joachim) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),494(wheel) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0

there is no group joachim in /etc/group

Sauerland · January 18, 2026, 8:06pm

Compare executed as User on Tumbleweed and Cachyos:
id

Please use Code-Tags:
Code-Tags

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 9:27pm

tumbleweed

joachim@caba1:~> LANG=C id
uid=1000(joachim) gid=100(users) groups=100(users),494(wheel) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0

cachyos

❯ LANG=C id
uid=1000(joachim) gid=1000(joachim) groups=1000(joachim),3(sys),90(network),956(docker),957(nopasswdlogin),979(rfkill),982(users),983(video),985(storage),989(lp),995(audio),998(wheel)

malcolmlewis · January 18, 2026, 9:50pm

@knurpht not here…

Tumbleweed;

useradd -m testuser
su - testuser
LANG=C id
uid=1001(testuser) gid=1001(testuser) groups=1001(testuser) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0

Leap 16.0;

useradd -m testuser
su - testuser
LANG=C id
uid=1001(testuser) gid=1001(testuser) groups=1001(testuser) context=unconfined_u:unconfined_r:unconfined_t:s0

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 10:08pm

Hm, yast creates users with group “users” and useradd with group=username. Strange

…but unfortunately the group id has nothing to do with my login problem.
No difference if I create the user with yast (main group users) or useradd (main group joachim): gui login is not possible and console login refuses to cd to /home/joachim.
Otoh, su - joachim has no problem at all. WTF!

malcolmlewis · January 18, 2026, 10:15pm

@joba1 YaST is deprecated, use commandline or Cockpit → Accounts.

joba1 · January 18, 2026, 10:27pm

oh, my - weaning off yast . A problem for another day

and searching for cockpit in the start menu finds nothing

malcolmlewis · January 18, 2026, 10:33pm

@joba1 you can install the browser based interface and package plugins via Myrlyn patterns or zypper.

Read here first: https://en.opensuse.org/Main:Cockpit