Option to create user home if it is not present on login?

[Jamesits]

There are some cases when a user can login, have a user home directory path, but the directory itself is not present in the system. This is very common if the system is set up to use centralized auth (i.e. kerberos). Is it possible for systemdspawner to create the user home directory on login, so we don't need an admin to provision every new user manually?

[minrk]

This might be more appropriately a job for the authenticator instead of the spawner. Maybe both, though.

[JanBobolz]

This already works (also with systemdspawner) as described here: https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/tree/master/examples/bootstrap-script

In short: add c.Spawner.pre_spawn_hook = ANY_PYTHON_FUNCTION to the jupyterhub config file (define ANY_PYTHON_FUNCTION in the same file). This function is run before spawning a new instance. This allows you to create a home directory if it's missing.

[whositwhatnow]

@JanBobolz Would you possibly have a working example? Im running into issues with home directories not getting created (using SSSD Auth wit hPAM)

[JanBobolz]

Our example is pretty much the same as in the link provided:

jupyterhub_config.py:

#see https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/tree/master/examples/bootstrap-script for reference
from subprocess import check_call
import os
def init_user(spawner):
    username = spawner.user.name.strip().lower() # get the username
    script = "/home/jhubrunner/init_user.sh"
    check_call(["sudo", script, username])

# attach the hook function to the spawner
c.Spawner.pre_spawn_hook = init_user #called before any singleuser instance is instantiated (will run repeatedly)

init_user.sh:

#!/bin/bash

USER=$1
if [ "$USER" == "" ]; then
    exit 1
fi
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


echo "initializing $USER ..."

# User Directory: That's the private directory for the user to be created, if none exists
USER_DIRECTORY=/home/$USER


if [ -d "$USER_DIRECTORY/jupyter-notebooks" ]; then
    echo "...directory for user already exists. done."
    exit 0 # all good. nothing to do.
else
    echo "...creating home dir"
    install -d -m 0700 -o $USER $USER_DIRECTORY $USER_DIRECTORY/jupyter-notebooks
fi

exit 0

sudoers file:

jhubrunner      ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD:/home/jhubrunner/init_user.sh

where jhubrunner is the linux user running jupyterhub. If jhubrunner is not supposed to have sudo access for other stuff, make sure to make the init_user.sh non-writable to jhubrunner.

Debugging

If anything goes wrong, you should see something helpful in the journal (sudo journalctl -r should show some sort of error towards the top if there's a problem running the script)

Disclaimer

There may also be a solution where you don't have to run the init_user.sh script as sudo, it's just that we have a bunch of other stuff we're doing in that script (that I've cut out for this example) that needs sudo.

[whositwhatnow]

Thanks for this, this helps a lot. Brian Our example is pretty much the same as in the link provided: jupyterhub_config.py: #see https://github.com/jupyterhub/jupyterhub/tree/master/examples/bootstrap-script for reference from subprocess import check_call import os def init_user(spawner): username = spawner.user.name.strip().lower() # get the username script = "/home/jhubrunner/init_user.sh" check_call(["sudo", script, username]) # attach the hook function to the spawner c.Spawner.pre_spawn_hook = init_user #called before any singleuser instance is instantiated (will run repeatedly) init_user.sh: #!/bin/bash USER=$1 if [ "$USER" == "" ]; then exit 1 fi # ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- echo "initializing $USER ..." # User Directory: That's the private directory for the user to be created, if none exists USER_DIRECTORY=/home/$USER if [ -d "$USER_DIRECTORY/jupyter-notebooks" ]; then echo "...directory for user already exists. done." exit 0 # all good. nothing to do. else echo "...creating home dir" install -d -m 0700 -o $USER $USER_DIRECTORY $USER_DIRECTORY/jupyter-notebooks fi exit 0 sudoers file: jhubrunner ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD:/home/jhubrunner/init_user.sh where jhubrunner is the linux user running jupyterhub. If jhubrunner is not supposed to have sudo access for other stuff, make sure to make the init_user.sh non-writable to jhubrunner. Debugging If anything goes wrong, you should see something helpful in the journal (sudo journalctl -r should show some sort of error towards the top if there's a problem running the script) Disclaimer There may also be a solution where you don't have to run the init_user.sh script as sudo, it's just that we have a bunch of other stuff we're doing in that script (that I've cut out for this example) that needs sudo. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<#38 (comment)>, or unsubscribe<https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AFII5HHFLEAYT5TTZ7N3SJLRZ3WFFANCNFSM4FTECHAQ>.