Filesystem Hierarchy Standard

3.13 /root : Home directory for the root user (optional)

3.13.1 Purpose

The root account's home directory may be determined by developer or local preference, but this is the recommended default location.[footnote 14]

[14] If the home directory of the root account is not stored on the root partition it will be necessary to make certain it will default to / if it can not be located.

We recommend against using the root account for tasks that can be performed as an unprivileged user, and that it be used solely for system administration. For this reason, we recommend that subdirectories for mail and other applications not appear in the root account's home directory, and that mail for administration roles such as root, postmaster, and webmaster be forwarded to an appropriate user.


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Translated by troff2html v1.5 on 29 March 2002 by Daniel Quinlan