Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001 14:18:54 -0600 From: Ben Weaver <bweaver@tranquility.net> To: Bill Sandiford <sysop@interlinks.net> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Migrating users from one machine to another Message-ID: <20011212141854.C63510@tranquility.net> In-Reply-To: <000701c1832e$012d3a00$0fa06bcf@custinfo>; from sysop@interlinks.net on Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 11:56:53AM -0500 References: <000701c1832e$012d3a00$0fa06bcf@custinfo>
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###On Wed, Dec 12, 2001 at 11:56:53AM -0500, Bill Sandiford wrote: > Hi : > > I have a mail server with approx 2000 users that is starting to die. I > have built a new machine (new hard drives etc.) and need to migrate all of > the users from the old machine to the new. I have looked for an online > resource that explains the process but was unable to find one. I am > assuming that all I need to do is copy the follow files from the old machine > to the new, but I am afraid that I may miss one > > /etc/passwd > /etc/master.passwd > /etc/groups Those three files are the key ones to have. If the new server is running a newer version of FreeBSD or newer versions of some software, make sure that you duplicate any special accounts or groups already existing in the new /etc/master.passwd and /etc/groupd but not existing in the old files. Once you move /etc/master.passwd over, be sure to run a pwd_mkdb on it. A VERY important part of the upgrade is to make sure that your login.conf default password format matches your password format scheme in /etc/master.passwd. For instance, if you're migrating from an older version of FreeBSD, the default format might be DES, but newer versions of FreeBSD default to md5. The result would be that authentication attempts would fail. If the format of your master.passwd file is DES, change the line passwd_format=md5:\ to passwd_format=des:\ in your /etc/login.conf, then run cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf To move all of your home directories shouldn't require a special script. All you need to do is transfer all of the old /home to the new /home. You can do this with tar, or scp -R if you want to. For instance from the old server you can: tar czf - -C /home . | ssh root@new.server.isp.net tar xvzf - -C /home You could also pull the drive(s) from the old server and mount them in the new server or make an nfs share and copy them with the cp command... Anything will work. One other thing is where are the mail spool files for all of your users? Are they in $HOME/.mail or in /var/mail/$USER. If they're in /var, you'll have to move those as well. Don't forget to take your mail server down before moving the spool files. It just wouldn't do if you moved someone's mail over to the new server and they got some new, important mail delievered to them before you brought the new server online and it went to the old server unbeknownst to you. I hope this helped a bit. Good luck. -Ben To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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