Re: FreeBSD user conversion

[Anand Buddhdev <arb anand org>]

On Tue, Jul 02, 2002 at 10:18:13AM -0400, Scott wrote:

> Hi-
> 
> I have just taken over operations at an ISP and I will be converting the 
> very dated FreeBSD machines
> to Red Hat Linux.  Can someone point me to a script or utility that will 
> allow me to convert the passwd
> file on FreeBSD to Red Hat?  Is there such a thing or must I manually key 
> in the several thousand
> users :(

Aaarrggghhh.... you're going to commit daemon-o-cide....

FreeBSD stores user accounts in /etc/master.passwd. This file is similar
to the linux /etc/passwd file, but it contains 10 fields, instead
of the usual 7. The extra fields are the 5th, 6th and 7th, which are
FreeBSD-specific. You could write an awk one-liner to extract fields 1-4
and 8-10 from this file, and construct a linux-compatible /etc/passwd. And
then if you're using shadow on your redhat system, then run the pwconv
utility to generate your shadow file. See this link for more information:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=passwd&sektion=5&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+4.6-RELEASE

-- 
Anand Buddhdev
http://anand.org