Voytek Eymont wrote:
I'm transferring web users from RH73 to Centos on new server;
is there a way to transfer users' unknown passwords to the new server ?
this is just for ftp access, that's the only access users have
(or do I just ask them 'what password you desire?')
Assuming you are using standard Unix authentication, and not something
like LDAP, the passwords are stored in /etc/shadow, and you should be
able to migrate the user database entries from /etc/passwd and
/etc/shadow to the new server. You will need to copy/paste the
appropriate lines (entries) from both files into the new server's files.
Be careful not to cause any conflicts of UID or GID (the third and
fourth fields in /etc/passwd). Do not migrate over system or daemon
accounts - only the ones that correspond to your actual users.
You will need to complete the same migration on /etc/group and
/etc/gshadow for the group and group shadow files, since Red Hat Linux
by default creates personal groups for every user (though the entries in
/etc/gshadow are usually trivial).
If you have to change any UIDs or GIDs to avoid conflict, be sure to
change the ownership of all files in the home directories, and any other
files like mail spools, with "chown" and "chgrp".
I am not sure if there are any utilities to help automate this; I've
always done this on a small scale and with care.
--Jeremy
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