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by default ~ is given the value of /home/username/

i.e. If I use the command cd ~ it goes to the directory /home/username/

How to change the value of it to some other file such as /home/username/filename?

I do know that this can be dangerous, I am working on a CTF though, so it is fine.

Tim
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Tummala Dhanvi
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2 Answers2

6

The tilde (~) is interpreted by your shell, as a short form of $HOME.

Try the following commands:

echo ~
HOME=foo
echo ~

This should first print your real home directory and afterwards "foo", as you set $HOME` to that.

The default value of $HOME comes from you system configuration. Use getent passwd to list all known users and their home directories. Depending on your system configuration those entries might come from /etc/passwd or any remote directory service.

If you only want to temporarily redefine your home directory, just set another $HOME.

If you permanently want to change it you have to change the passwd entry, e.g. by manually editing /etc/passwd.

Taken from this U&L question.

Community
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Tim
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3

Try to change the $HOME variable , because tilde (~) is a short form of $HOME, or change your user's home directory in /etc/passwd but that's not recommended.

Why you don't try to make and alias for cd /home/username/filename like this:

alias documents='cd ~/Documents'

Now when you type documents it will change to /home/user/Documents

More info in man alias.

To make that alias permanent, check this question.

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nux
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