[Lias] migrating users and their passwords

[Jonathon Coombes]

On Sun, 2002-12-01 at 01:45, Leon Brooks wrote:
> On Saturday 30 November 2002 06:43 am, Parkes High School wrote:
> > My users are going to be pretty peeved if I have to get them to enter
> > passwords again (they are getting sick of me always fiddling!)
> 
> > Can I somehow migrate them and their passwords from the RH 8.0 box to
> > the RH 7.0?
> 
> If RH7 uses the same password format, and adjeweb's software uses the system 
> passwords and mailboxes, just copy them (user by user) from /etc/shadow on 
> the old system to the same file on the new, and their mail from/to 
> /var/spool/mail/$USERNAME
> 
> If the s/w uses standard HTTP authentication instead, and you can find a 
> .htpasswd file, then copying the passwords would be no trouble but I have no 
> idea where there mail might be stored.

Something to be careful of here, is if users already exist on the
new system. Copying the shadow file may be fine, but with directories
and files such as $HOME and the mailboxes, the uid's may get mixed up.
Just make sure that the uid:gid is an exact mapping, and there are no
overlaps.

Another very useful command for changing passwords is the 'chpasswd'
command. This is designed to change the user passwords as a batch job.
Ideal for schools where you have to update hundreds of accounts.

Regards,
Jonathon