Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2007 10:25:50 -0400 From: Bill Vermillion <bv@wjv.com> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Is it difficult to move from Linux Message-ID: <20071023142550.GC42259@wjv.com> In-Reply-To: <20071023120040.A0DCF16A49A@hub.freebsd.org> References: <20071023120040.A0DCF16A49A@hub.freebsd.org>
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At Tue, Oct 23, 2007 at 12:00 , our malformed and occasionally flatulent friend freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org spewed forth this fount of brain juice: > Date: Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:30:30 -0700 (PDT) > From: Tim Judd <tjudd2k@yahoo.com> > Subject: Re: Is it difficult to move from Linux? > I subscribe to the digest, so below is a copy/paste of the > question/mail i'm replying to: > ----- QUOTE: > Hi, > I have been using Linux for over 10 years, but have for a number > of reasons become very interested in learning to use FreeBSD. > Are there any ex or current Linux users here and could you > tell me how hard it is to make the shift from Linux? Is there > anything in particular which has been written which would be > useful to read? > > T.I.A. ----- /QUOTE I'm not a Linux user - but have moved several Linux sites and a SysV site into FreeBSD. Most of it is fairly straight ahead but when moving users from Linux or SysV's with the shadow password format into the FreeBSD method it will take a bit of work. master.passwd holds both the UID plus the password. In Linux/SysV the shadow file holds that information and not master.passwd. [The passwd file is readable by all but does not contain passwords]. I'd cut/paste the passwd files and the shadow files together. What you want is to get the encrypited passwd from shadow into the passwd file so that it looks like a Linux/SysV passwd file of days gone by. And BSD has two extra fields in the password file and if you check the passwd(5) in FreeBSD you will see a two line script which will add the two extra fields added in FreeBSD. If you have only a few users it may be easier to just add them manually but if you have to change hundreds I found the editing of the two files together to be good. Then you use 'vipw' the tool that manages the master.passwd file and go down past the system names, and then delete all past that and then suck in the modified files as I described above. If you make a mistake 'vipw' will let you know that you have an error and will not save the file. If all goes well you have a new master.passwd with all the old user password from Linux in there. IMPORTANT NOTE ****** Be SURE - REALLY SURE - you have made copies of the passwd and master.passwd files. And TRIPLY IMPORTANT - DO NOT LOGOUT when you are doing this. When you get the saved file from 'vipw' all the other logins should work. BUT TEST TEST on at least a couple of names using the old password from Linux. At the console you have ATL-F<N> keys to give extra logins so this is a good place to test. THEN before you logout BE QUADRUPLY Sure that you can login via root - before you log out of your first session where you did the original login. I hope this helps. When it's all done I'm sure you will grow to love FreeBSD. It's documentation in superb [and if you look at some of the Linux man pages you will see they are xBSD man pages that have had global replacements using Linunx instead of FreeBSD. Bill -- Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com
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