Re-Install Zentyal without losing /home

[Commifreak]

Hey

I currently have a seperated /home Partition.

Simple question: Is it possible to re-install zentyal and tell the installer for / to format and /home to NOT format and still have all data stored in /home available after installation?

Is Zentyal touching itself something on /home after a normal installation?

Thanks

[robb]

You can choose the advanced method during install. Then you can decide for yourself how you partition your drive(s)

[Commifreak]

Thats not an answer for my question - I want to know if Zentyal is touching the existing /home partition during normal install.

[robb]

If you choose the automatic install, the standard Ubuntu install settings will be used. And with that a new /home will be created. If your /home is on the same drive as your / then expect to loose the /home data since the auto installation will wipe the disk and use the whole disk for the new install.

[Commifreak]

Hi,

You dont understand my question. I know that I have to use expert mode, of course Ive configured my RAID using this way. I only want to know if Zentyal/Ubuntu Installer is touching an existing /home partition, during (expert) installation...

If not, say no. :-)

[Jan Jacobs]

YOU dont understand the answer given.. IF you choose the expert install, you can choose how to partition the drives, and manually select Format for partitions, or not select Format for it.

So No, if you tell Zentyal not to touch your /home folder, it will not.

[miquel]

IMHO nobody understands nobody, and this turns a simple question into a big problem.

While the original question is about zentyal behaviour once installed,  the answer is about zentyal (=ubuntu) installation proces itself

a) installation can keep existing home, if you want
b) once zentyal is running, will refuse to create new users with alreade existing directories
c) to reuse them, first you have to rename them, create user, remove empty home, and finally rename again old directory or something similar

[Commifreak]

IMHO nobody understands nobody, and this turns a simple question into a big problem.

While the original question is about zentyal behaviour once installed,  the answer is about zentyal (=ubuntu) installation proces itself

a) installation can keep existing home, if you want
b) once zentyal is running, will refuse to create new users with alreade existing directories
c) to reuse them, first you have to rename them, create user, remove empty home, and finally rename again old directory or something similar

Thanks ;-)

 I only want to know if Zentyal/Ubuntu is changing or doing something insude (existing) home. But it seems that it doesnt make any actions. Ive created a folder and backed all up. If Zentyal releases as stable version, I reinstall and reuse the data.

[ichat]

If you read what  robb  said before, and ask him what he meant with his words instead of acussing him of nor reading correctly, this discussion had been over already, there is no need for acusing eatchother over and over again..

he allready had explained that... once you do not choose the manual installation option, the installer will atomagically assume ubuntu defaults and with that, it will create a new partition table with a new /(root), /home and  swapp partion. thus destroying your data regardless of  it being in */* , */home* or even */chickensoup* (unless your data doesn't reside on the same (virtual) disk...

this tread can now be closed and marked as solved,  as by now you should understand that ubuntu will not prevent you from losing data if you let it auto-format your harddrive.

[Commifreak]

You still dont understand. I only want to know if something else than the partitioner makes something on /home (install script, samba plugin setup or something else). But it seems that the samba intialization does not touch anything.

[ichat]

dear comifreak,

since you can see non of us seam to understand what you are trying to ask, 
and thus maybe its not as simple question after all...  you should also try to ask good questions, so that people may clearly understand what your are looking for.   

For now i will list a few 'did you know's  about the installing process, in the hope of answering your question non the less,  if your answer is still not there, please don't try to acuse anyone, but instead try to explain in detail or by example,  what you meant to ask in the first place...   

1> the installer proces  if set to automagically will repartion a diskdrive, (destroying all data on it),
2> if manual installing,  you can remove all partions expept those where you data is living ... if there is a 'create a new partition table option  dont toutch or tick it  and your data will stay untouched...
3>  if your data has not been removed by the installer (see 1 and 2),  nothing has been changed to your /home partion after the new system has been installed  exept for 1 thing...  there is a new home folder for the user created during the setup procedure... 
4a>  the easiest way to give back the data to the people who previously  owned them is by recreating thare useraccounts  and using the    chown  and chmod  commands   to give  the proper rights back to the proper user accounts...
4b>  there may be a way to recreate the old user account in sutch a 100% identical way,  that chown and chmod are not neaded,  but there is no garantees that this will work flawlessly.
5>  there are no scripts or systems in place that will automagically remap previous data to current users,  recreate previously shared documents,  or safegart that uids are the same as last time.   unless, instead of using the installer, you are using a recovery system  like disaster recovery or a system cloning tool like ghost.

i hope this will help you answer your question..