How can I prevent other users from seeing the contents of my home directory?

I have a box with multiple users on it and I want everyone to be able to have full access to their home folders, but not be able to see the contents of /home/ or another user's home folder (I.E. bob has full access to /home/bob but cannot access or even see the contents of /home/john)

Right now users can see other user's home folders but can't modify what's inside.

How do I prevent them from seeing the contents at all?


Solution 1:

Change the permissions of the Home folder...

You need to modify the Home folder's permissions using either:

  • chmod
  • the 'File Permissions' dialog (Nautilus Only)

for chmod

Open a terminal in the home folder and chmod the permissions

chmod go-rwx [usersHomeFolder]

for the 'File Permissions' dialog

  • right-click the usersHomeFolder
  • select 'properties'
  • under the 'permissions' tab change the owner to your user name if it isn't already set, change the group to none, and change other to none.

See this link for more info.