Can Virtualmin support additional /home directories?

Virtualmin
1
SYSTEM INFORMATION
OS type and version AlmaLinux 9.7
Webmin version 2.630
Virtualmin version 8.1.0
Webserver version Apache/2.4.62

In cpanel, for instance, I can mount additional /home2, /home3, etc. directories on different disks if I need more space. Does virtualmin support this? The only question I saw about this on here issue was from 2008.

Thanks.

Edit: If that’s not possible, what would be the impact of mounting a disk as a new user under /home, eg. mounting a 100GB disk as /home/newuser, and then creating a new user with that username? Would that work and if so would there be any downsides?

2

In a nutshell, no.

3

I’m not ‘authoritative’ but you can set an alternative here. I don’t know if that messes with anything else. You just add the disk and change the default? I haven’t tried this and I’m sure someone from the staff will confirm or deny once they get to the thread. :wink:

image
image1147×263 34.5 KB

4

@ ID10T I could, but that’s not the question. There’s a 320GB perfectly serviceable primary disk, it’s just a fraction of the cost to add on additional disks as opposed to increasing the size of the primary (which can only be done by upgrading the cpu and ram as well).

5

Well, the main point stands. Change the template to where you want to add the new VM’s.

6

just mount them as you like, it’s worth knowing something about how Linux works and use mount and fstab to do the work

7

You probably could, but you should not. (You should not with cPanel, either, but that’s none of my business.)

Just make a volume that contains all the disks as one big /home.

8

@jimr1 The question wasn’t whether or not I could mount directories named /home1, the question is whether or not I could use those additional directories in virtualmin.

@Joe is there a reason we shouldn’t do that?

9

There are many reasons to not do that.

But, also there is no reason to do that. Logical volumes are trivial to setup and add to. It’s silly to make a big messy pile of numbered homes when it’s so easy to do it the right way.

You shouldn’t do it because it is weird. By that, I mean you’re going to have to special case everything that interacts with home directories, you’ll have to check which of your several homes the user is in whenever you need to look at their home, backups will be weird and probably more complicated to restore on some future (hopefully more normal) system, you’ll forget about the exact layout of things at some point and do something that breaks something because this is an unusual thing.

Systems should be normal, predictable, and all the same. If you have to remember the unusual locations of things, you’re increasing the likelihood of mistakes.

And, every virtual server creation will be a silly dance where you check which home has enough space for the new thing, or whatever…and, if they surprise you and grow much larger, you’re now having to move them to another home.

It does not make sense to sign up for all that when doing it the right way is so easy.