# Launching OnDemand when home directory does not exist

**URL:** <https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/launching-ondemand-when-home-directory-does-not-exist/53>\
**Category:** Get Help\
**Created:** [October 23, 2018, 1:49pm UTC](https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/launching-ondemand-when-home-directory-does-not-exist/53 "2018-10-23T13:49:09Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![efranz](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex015/user_avatar/discourse.openondemand.org/efranz/32/27_2.png) [@efranz](https://discourse.openondemand.org/u/efranz)\
**Post date:** [November 1, 2018, 5:40pm UTC](https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/launching-ondemand-when-home-directory-does-not-exist/53/3 "2018-11-01T17:40:25Z")

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That experiment failed. However, there appears to be another solution. A modification to `nginx_stage/lib/nginx_stage/views/pun_config_view.rb` and `nginx_stage/templates/pun.conf.erb` to show a warning page if the home directory was not found. Along with this diabeling the check for the existence of the home directory in `nginx_stage/lib/nginx_stage/generator_helpers.rb`.

The result is this workflow. When launching OnDemand with an account that does not have a home directory created, you would see this page:

1. Access OnDemand with a user that has no home directory: 

2. Click Open Shell to create home directory which opens the shell app: 

3. Click Restart Web Server: 

Since this is not a dynamic page like the “init app page”, we could look into generating a copy of this on the fly and storing it with the pun config, which could provide sites more control over customization.

I will share the code modifications required in a separate comment (or update this one).

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.openondemand.org/t/launching-ondemand-when-home-directory-does-not-exist/53)._