How to get $HOME directory of different user in bash script?

Update: Based on this question's title, people seem to come here just looking for a way to find a different user's home directory, without the need to impersonate that user.

In that case, the simplest solution is to use tilde expansion with the username of interest, combined with eval (which is needed, because the username must be given as an unquoted literal in order for tilde expansion to work):

eval echo "~$different_user"    # prints $different_user's home dir.

Note: The usual caveats regarding the use of eval apply; in this case, the assumption is that you control the value of $different_user and know it to be a mere username.

By contrast, the remainder of this answer deals with impersonating a user and performing operations in that user's home directory.

Note:

  • Administrators by default and other users if authorized via the sudoers file can impersonate other users via sudo.
  • The following is based on the default configuration of sudo - changing its configuration can make it behave differently - see man sudoers.

The basic form of executing a command as another user is:

sudo -H -u someUser someExe [arg1 ...]
  # Example:
sudo -H -u root env  # print the root user's environment

Note:

  • If you neglect to specify -H, the impersonating process (the process invoked in the context of the specified user) will report the original user's home directory in $HOME.
  • The impersonating process will have the same working directory as the invoking process.
  • The impersonating process performs no shell expansions on string literals passed as arguments, since no shell is involved in the impersonating process (unless someExe happens to be a shell) - expansions by the invoking shell - prior to passing to the impersonating process - can obviously still occur.

Optionally, you can have an impersonating process run as or via a(n impersonating) shell, by prefixing someExe either with -i or -s - not specifying someExe ... creates an interactive shell:

  • -i creates a login shell for someUser, which implies the following:

    • someUser's user-specific shell profile, if defined, is loaded.
    • $HOME points to someUser's home directory, so there's no need for -H (though you may still specify it)
    • The working directory for the impersonating shell is the someUser's home directory.

  • -s creates a non-login shell:

    • no shell profile is loaded (though initialization files for interactive nonlogin shells are; e.g., ~/.bashrc)
    • Unless you also specify -H, the impersonating process will report the original user's home directory in $HOME.
    • The impersonating shell will have the same working directory as the invoking process.

Using a shell means that string arguments passed on the command line MAY be subject to shell expansions - see platform-specific differences below - by the impersonating shell (possibly after initial expansion by the invoking shell); compare the following two commands (which use single quotes to prevent premature expansion by the invoking shell):

  # Run root's shell profile, change to root's home dir.
sudo -u root -i eval 'echo $SHELL - $USER - $HOME - $PWD'
  # Don't run root's shell profile, use current working dir.
  # Note the required -H to define $HOME as root`s home dir.
sudo -u root -H -s eval 'echo $SHELL - $USER - $HOME - $PWD'

What shell is invoked is determined by "the SHELL environment variable if it is set or the shell as specified in passwd(5)" (according to man sudo). Note that with -s it is the invoking user's environment that matters, whereas with -i it is the impersonated user's.

Note that there are platform differences regarding shell-related behavior (with -i or -s):

  • sudo on Linux apparently only accepts an executable or builtin name as the first argument following -s/-i, whereas OSX allows passing an entire shell command line; e.g., OSX accepts sudo -u root -s 'echo $SHELL - $USER - $HOME - $PWD' directly (no need for eval), whereas Linux doesn't (as of sudo 1.8.95p).

  • Older versions of sudo on Linux do NOT apply shell expansions to arguments passed to a shell; for instance, with sudo 1.8.3p1 (e.g., Ubuntu 12.04), sudo -u root -H -s echo '$HOME' simply echoes the string literal "$HOME" instead of expanding the variable reference in the context of the root user. As of at least sudo 1.8.9p5 (e.g., Ubuntu 14.04) this has been fixed. Therefore, to ensure expansion on Linux even with older sudo versions, pass the the entire command as a single argument to eval; e.g.: sudo -u root -H -s eval 'echo $HOME'. (Although not necessary on OSX, this will work there, too.)

  • The root user's $SHELL variable contains /bin/sh on OSX 10.9, whereas it is /bin/bash on Ubuntu 12.04.

Whether the impersonating process involves a shell or not, its environment will have the following variables set, reflecting the invoking user and command: SUDO_COMMAND, SUDO_USER, SUDO_UID=, SUDO_GID.

See man sudo and man sudoers for many more subtleties.

Tip of the hat to @DavidW and @Andrew for inspiration.


In BASH, you can find a user's $HOME directory by prefixing the user's login ID with a tilde character. For example:

$ echo ~bob

This will echo out user bob's $HOME directory.

However, you say you want to be able to execute a script as a particular user. To do that, you need to setup sudo. This command allows you to execute particular commands as either a particular user. For example, to execute foo as user bob:

$ sudo -i -ubob -sfoo

This will start up a new shell, and the -i will simulate a login with the user's default environment and shell (which means the foo command will execute from the bob's$HOME` directory.)

Sudo is a bit complex to setup, and you need to be a superuser just to be able to see the shudders file (usually /etc/sudoers). However, this file usually has several examples you can use.

In this file, you can specify the commands you specify who can run a command, as which user, and whether or not that user has to enter their password before executing that command. This is normally the default (because it proves that this is the user and not someone who came by while the user was getting a Coke.) However, when you run a shell script, you usually want to disable this feature.


For the sake of an alternative answer for those searching for a lightweight way to just find a user's home dir...

Rather than messing with su hacks, or bothering with the overhead of launching another bash shell just to find the $HOME environment variable...

Lightweight Simple Homedir Query via Bash

There is a command specifically for this: getent

getent passwd someuser | cut -f6 -d:

getent can do a lot more... just see the man page. The passwd nsswitch database will return the user's entry in /etc/passwd format. Just split it on the colon : to parse out the fields.

It should be installed on most Linux systems (or any system that uses GNU Lib C (RHEL: glibc-common, Deb: libc-bin)

Tags:

Bash

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