Enforced homedir

[nomandera]

I have a question to confirm my understanding.

In my experience it is unusual that the creation of a homedir is mandatory for all users. This really stumbled me as I assumed I was making a mistake somewhere e.g. why does a read only user need a system homedir.

As I understand it now the homedir is mandatory because behind the scenes it is used as some sort of temporary location?

Is there a way around this for read only users?

Update:

I found a reference in the manual

You can use the same home directory with multiple users if you'd like them to have access to the same files. For tiered access, you can nest folders.

which really helped with my understanding. This is more akin to a landing directory than what a *nix user would traditionally consider a home directory.

I should also note that when defining a new user the settings make no mention of a home directory at all but it is inferred that File system > Storage is this location.

None of this is complex but it is arguably more confusing. than it needs to be.

I would suggest two enhancements:

1. In the user settings add a comment to the File system section explaining that this is the home directory and is mandatory.
2. Embed a copy of the manual and hyperlink to the relevant sections from the management interface

Obviously users can work this all out for themselves but examples go a long way to reduce onboarding headaches and are a very cheap method to get people happier with the experience.