Reinventing Home Directories Let's bring the UNIX concept of Home Directories into the 21st century

-Kate Rashenov

Reinvent home directories for the 21st century with unification, security, and ease of setup and migration through a new backend technology using JSON user records and easy system syncing.

Key takeaways

Re-inventing home directories for 21st century, to unify and secure file access control
Goals: make it easy to set up a secure and secureable home directory, make migrations effortless
Problems: no built-in encryption, no unified user records, no easy sync with other systems
Solution: create a new backend (Lux) that uses JSON user records and provides easy sync with other systems
Importance of encryption and user records in securing file access control
HomeD is a component that makes use of this, but anyone can supply their own backend
Ability to convert between different user record formats (e.g. NSS to JSON)
Inherent user database design is around passwords, needs to be updated
Key goals: all configurations should be hidden from clients, user data should be stored securely, and user controls should be provided
The concept of “home” should be re-defined for the 21st century
Existing solutions like ZFFS are not sufficient and need to be improved
Current home directories lack encryption, user records, and easy migration capabilities
Need for better sync and authentication mechanisms
Extended local file system permissions and access control
Encryption and decryption keys should be stored securely and not in plain text
User records should be extensible and contain additional information
One important thing is the use of TPM (Trusted Platform Module) for hardware-based encryption

Reinventing Home Directories Let's bring the UNIX concept of Home Directories into the 21st century

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