RE: How to Backup Users in Redhat

["Ben Yau" <byau cardcommerce com>]

> >   i recently installed redhat 7.3 and we have 25 users
> > only but in future going to increase. i want to backup
> > users so that when ever server get crash and just
> > reinstall my server and recover this users backup
> > file. which files do i need backup.? /etc/passwd file
> > is enough.?
> >
> > thanks,
> > Kumar.
>
> /etc/passwd
> /etc/group
> /etc/shadow
> /etc/gshadow
>
> Those 4 will get you the user info but you'll still have to recreate home
> directories etc. You would be best to use a script to recreat
> user accounts
> by extracting the usernames etc from these files as opposed to
> just replacing
> the existing ones and trying to get the environments and
> everything in place.
> The tricky part with that would be to create a unique password
> for each user
> and communicate that to them (securely). The shadow file would
> contain the
> passwords but unless you have a good understanding of what you're
> doing in
> there, you can break things.
>

Hi Kumar and Pete

Pete,  why would you not backup the home directories along with the /etc
files you mentioned? (plus any system wide environment files you have in
place like /etc/profile or whatever).

That way after a OS reinstall you just put the /etc files in place, the
/home dirs, and do not have to recreate passwords, homedirs, and
environments?   Even though you have a good point that unless you have a
good understanding of wat you're doing in the shadow file, you could break
things, i think it's easier to understand how to restore files than to
create scripts to extract user information, recreate users, create new
passwords, securely transmit to users new passwords , and recreate
environments.

Just curious

Ben Y