Can't create files after logging in

Owned by Marc Miller
Apr 19, 2019
1 min read

Problem

When you log onto csil.cs.ucsb.edu with your College of Engineering account via ssh, you see the following error:

Last login: Fri Apr 19 09:47:17 2019 from 128.111.27.168
Could not chdir to home directory /fs/student/<username>: No such file or directory

You also try to create a file in your account and you get permission denied or can't open file for writing or any other message denying you from being able to save anything there.

Cause

The likely cause is that your home directory no longer exists for your account.

To further verify it, you can type pwd.

If you see it say:

/

Then your home directory is no longer and you are trying to write in a location you do not have permissions.

This can happen if you are a non-Computer Science Student who hasn't touched your College of Engineering Account for over 2 years.

In order to free up disk space, we occasionally purge account home directories that haven't seen any changes for two years, under the belief you are no longer needing the data on the account or plan on using it further.

Solution

You will need to contact help@engineering.ucsb.edu, informing us that your home directory needs to be recreated for your account.

They will then recreate your home directory and contact you when you can try and access it again.

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