How do I mount an external drive as /Users?

Posted:
in macOS
I am running Ventura on a M2 Mac mini.  I have an external drive I want to use as /Users.  How do I do it?

I've tried creating /etc/synthetic.conf as suggested by https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2020/01/18/creating-root-level-directories-and-symbolic-links-on-macos-catalina/

/etc/synthetic.conf:
Users<tab>Volumes/Users

#also tried the following
#Users<tab>/Volumes/Users

Didn't work.  Pulled the UUID of /Volumes/Users and stuck that in fstab.  Did not work either.  I don't really want to go into System Settings and change the home directory there, because of all the messy permission issues and other things as a result of copying everything over from /Users/me to /Volumes/Users/me, especially all those restricted folders in ~/Library.

My preference would be a way to mount an external drive as /Users, and the ability to set it up from recovery mode, so that the first boot already has that mounted.  And be able to use File Vault 2 seamlessly.

Any ideas?
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