changing user home directory has no effect When I switch from root user to a user (automatically created when installing git-auto-deploy) with `sudo -u git-auto-deploy /bin/bash` I always get this error: > bash: /root/.bashrc: Permission denied I created a user home directory, and put a `.profile` in it with the following (ran `source` on it too): export HOME=/srv/users/git-auto-deploy The command `finger git-auto-deploy` gives the following output: Login: git-auto-deploy Name: Directory: /srv/users/git-auto-deploy Shell: /bin/bash Never logged in. When logged in as this user, the `env` command still lists incorrect directory: HOME=/root What am I doing wrong?

Use `sudo -s -H -u git-auto-deploy`.

`sudo` by itself does not change the value of `HOME`, but does so when `-H` is used. This is why you're getting that "Permission denied" error. The user can't access `root`'s home directory (and shouldn't be able to either).

The `-s` option makes `sudo` start whatever shell is configured as the login shell for the specified user (i.e. no need to explicitly run `/bin/bash`).