<FONT face="Default Sans Serif,Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif" size=2>-----kwlug-disc-bounces@kwlug.org wrote: -----<br><div>>From: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca><br>> first, moving the existing user/group configuration -- what does<br>>that involve? it's not just blindly copying files like /etc/passwd,<br>>/etc/group and so on since, unless you take care to sync the UIDs and<br>>GIDs of software packages, those IDs are most likely not going to<br>>match across the systems.<br><br>The Linuxes that I use keep the same UIDs between installs. In other words the 'www' user (for apache) has the same UID on difference installs. Is yours different?<br><br>Perhaps you are referring to adds and removals. This is something that should be dealt with.<br><br>> my strategy is to take the following files:<br>><br>> * /etc/passwd<br>> * /etc/shadow<br>> * /etc/group<br>> * /etc/gshadow<br>><br>>copy them, *strip* them of everything but their additional<br>>user-oriented info (UIDs >= 1000), and simply append the remaining<br>>info to the corresponding files of the new system. from long<br>>experience, adding that information is all that's necessary to define<br>>new users and their respective groups.<br><br>I usually do a ':r' in vi to add them to an existing file. Then, one line at a time, I merge/remove the duplicates. For example you may have added a user to the 'disk' group, or altered a home dir or shell of a system account.<br><br>> *note* that i'm not talking about also copying home dirs (clearly,<br>>that will be done as well), or adding any accounts to system package<br>>files (such as, say, adding people to /etc/ftpusers or stuff like<br>>that). that's *additional* work that will still be done. all i'm<br>>talking about is the minimal work to officially create those accounts<br>>identically to their current setup and, AFAICT, those four files are<br>>the only files that need to be adjusted to make that happen. does<br>>that sound reasonable?<br><br>Copying files is the easiest way.<br><br>Also keep in mind that other files control authentication as well. There may be .ssh/authorized_keys, .htaccess, mysql and others that you use for authentication and I hope you don't have .rhosts or hosts_equiv.<br><br>There are authentication configuration files in /etc/pam and user database configuration in /etc/nsswitch.conf. You may need to configure /etc/ssh/sshd_config if you've made changes. New user defaults are in /etc/skel and /etc/default.<br><br>You might also consider moving /etc/ssh/ssh_host_* files. If you have a lot of automated logins moving these will help out.<br></div></FONT>