Re: Restore passwords from backup in new install

[Bob McClure Jr <robertmcclure earthlink net>]

On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 12:29:10PM -0800, Rick Stevens wrote:
> romildo uber com br wrote:
> >Hello.
> >
> >I want to do a fresh install of Fedora Core 1, as I
> >have been doing with each Red Hat Linux since version
> >3.0.3 in my home computer.
> >
> >But now that I have more users in the machine, I am
> >wondering if there is a way to do a fresh install and
> >afterwards restore user passwords from a backup of
> >the old Red Hat Linux 9 install. This way users
> >will not have to set its password again on first
> >login.
> 
> It depends on what options you set for passwords.  Make copies of the
> /etc/passwd, /etc/group and /etc/shadow files.  These hold the user IDs
> and passwords for the users.  After the install, restore these files and
> you should be good to go.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Rick Stevens, Senior Systems Engineer     rstevens vitalstream com -
> - VitalStream, Inc.                       http://www.vitalstream.com -
> -                                                                    -
> -   UNIX is actually quite user friendly.  The problem is that it's  -
> -              just very picky of who its friends are!               -
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------

Here's a possible howsomever.  The system "users", e.g. mail, ftp,
apache, mysql, may be different from one distro to another, so perhaps
you should save and restore passwd and shadow entries over UID >= 500
and group entries >= 100.

I say that because I once transferred passwd, shadow, and group files
to a new system, and one of the daemons quit working because his UID
didn't exist anymore.

At the least, I'd save off the replaced files and compare the first 25
or so lines of each file and its replacement.

Cheers,
-- 
Bob McClure, Jr.             Bobcat Open Systems, Inc.
robertmcclure earthlink net  http://www.bobcatos.com
God answers prayers, not advice.