Tip Details Add a Related Tip

Rate as: Positive Negative

Fix /home directory after installing Leopard

If you do any sort of web development on your Mac, you are likely to have a /home directory on your drive. In my case, I have a /home directory with a bunch of symbolic links to directories in my user directories since these then allow me to match the directory structure on my production web servers. I know that Zend, and perhaps other development tools, also make use of the /home directory.

If you install Leopard, you are going to be in for a very rude surprise. Once you install Leopard, the /home directory will still be there, but it will be completely empty, and you'll be unable to figure out what is going on, nor will you be able to recreate what was in there previously.

I have no idea WTF Apple was thinking here, but the good news is that your files are still there and you can easily fix this problem with the /home directory. Here's how:

Edit the /etc/auto_master file. You'll need admin privileges to do this like so: sudo vi /etc/auto_master. Here are the contents of the file:

#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master            # Use directory service
/net                    -hosts          -nobrowse,nosuid
/home                   auto_home       -nobrowse
/Network/Servers        -fstab
/-                      -static

All you need to do is comment out the line that starts /home by putting a pound sign (#) in front of it. When you are done, here's how the file should look:


#
# Automounter master map
#
+auto_master            # Use directory service
/net                    -hosts          -nobrowse,nosuid
#/home                   auto_home       -nobrowse
/Network/Servers        -fstab
/-                      -static

Once you do this, you need to restart your machine.

If you do this, you'll completely recover your /home directory after installing Leopard.
Rating: 88% positive, 9 total Votes
Categories: Leopard repair Mac
Added: on Nov 04, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Added By: Marcos84

Comments on this Tip

Add a Comment
This happened to me too. I sat on hold with Apple tech support for 3 hours and never got through to a person who could help me. Thanks for this tip, it fixed the problem for me.
– Added by an anonymous user on Nov 05, 2007 at 6:22 am
this totally saved me.
– Added by an anonymous user on Mar 24, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Why mess around with the file system when there is chroot?
– Added by an anonymous user on Apr 09, 2008 at 9:24 am
How is chroot going to help here?
– Added by an anonymous user on Apr 10, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Your Comment:
(how to format)
Rate This Tip:

Verify Humanity:
Sorry, we know it's annoying, but please enter the characters shown in the image to the left so that we know you're an actual person and not an evil spammer. Thanks.
       

Related Tips

New screen capture options in Leopard

100% positive, 3 comments - last added on Jun 06, 2008 at 6:55 am
– Tip added by mollyp on Jan 22, 2008 at 12:36 pm

Fixing the scroll wheel on the Mighty Mouse

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Apr 22, 2008 at 8:16 am

Switch between spaces using your mouse

100% positive, 1 comment - last added on May 01, 2008 at 12:54 pm
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Mar 29, 2008 at 8:56 am

Quickly open a stack in the Finder

Categories: Finder Dock Mac Leopard
100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Mar 18, 2008 at 7:46 am

web clip widgets

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user 5 days, 16 hours ago

Installing PHP GD on a Leopard Mac

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 27, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Bulk image manipulation on the Mac

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 11, 2008 at 6:28 am

Open finder windows from open/save dialogs

Categories: Leopard Finder shortcut Mac
100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 04, 2008 at 3:18 pm

Change in Spaces behavior

Categories: Mac OS X Spaces Leopard
100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 02, 2008 at 10:35 am

Mosaic screen saver for the Mac

Categories: Mac Leopard screen saver
100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on May 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm

Viewing items in the trash in Leopard

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Apr 21, 2008 at 3:16 pm

mouse clicks not working on dashboard widgets

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by hephler on Apr 07, 2008 at 4:45 pm

Disable X11 quit confirmations in Leopard

Categories: Mac Leopard terminal
100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Apr 06, 2008 at 10:24 am

Showing time remaining in Quicklook videos

100% positive, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Apr 02, 2008 at 7:19 am

iPod Nano on desktop but not in iTunes

Categories: Mac iPod repair
no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 19, 2008 at 8:47 am

Installing GIMP on a Mac

no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 05, 2008 at 11:18 am

Be invisible on iChat

no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Jun 03, 2008 at 8:28 am

Using Quick Look in the Finder

no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Apr 18, 2008 at 8:31 am

Show full file paths in the Finder Title

no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by hephler on Apr 17, 2008 at 1:04 pm

Translucent menu pull downs in Leopard

Categories: Mac Leopard menu bar
no ratings, 0 comments
– Tip added by an anonymous user on Mar 30, 2008 at 4:48 pm