On Tue, Oct 18, 2011 at 10:34 PM, Tom S <tsztur at gmail.com> wrote:

Big problem getting the hobbit-client utility from the default apt-get repo. Why is the home directory of the user 'hobbit' in /var/run/hobbit? Every time the system reboots /var/run gets cleared. Hobbit starts fine but my .ssh/authorized_keys file gets erased and my ssh-tunnel no longer works!

What is a way around this .. my entire environment of 12 virtual servers now will break XYMON monitoring for them anytime they servers are rebooted.

How can I fix this without reinstalling?

You could move the home directory to somewhere else, say /home/hobbit. Then on boot, make a symbolic link: ln -s /home/hobbit /var/run/hobbit

Alternatively, during boot simply unpack a tarball of whatever you want /var/run/hobbit to contain. Do the contents change at all? If so, set up a cron entry to recreate the tarball on a regular basis.

Alternatively, edit /etc/passwd to point hobbit's home elsewhere, then find all the occurrences of /var/run/hobbit in all the files in the hobbit home dir and edit them to match. You'll need to repeat that exercise if you ever reinstall.

Alternatively, check to see if you can relocate hobbit during installation. If so, consider if a reinstall might be worth the effort. I don't know if apt-get can do that.

Ralph Mitchell