Some of the arguments for turning it off: * Principle of least surprise - don't make changes to the end user system without explicitly changing the configuration. * Lacks features - doesn't copy /etc/skel for example. * Feature overlap with autodir and/or pam_mkhomedir.
Further arguments for turning it off: - Prevents session startup with NFS root_squash. Arguments for keeping it on: - Demo effect/out of the box experience for cases where users but home directories doesn't exist.
(In reply to comment #1) > Further arguments for turning it off: > > - Prevents session startup with NFS root_squash. This could be solved by making this feature a "best effort" feature. Currently, we do not fail upon EEXIST. We could additionally allow EACCES or even allow session startup on any error from mkdir. See also bug 4831.
There is a bigger argument against this feature; it is redundant with functionality already present on the system, i.e. pam_mkhomedir. That implementation also doesn't have the same limitations that our stuff does.
