[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: Redhat to Debian: migrating a multi-user server



On Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 02:06:26PM -0800, B. Dragoo wrote:
> 
> My main issue is getting user accounts over.  It would
> be very easy to copy the lines from my passwd, shadow,
> and group files over to the potato box, but I'm
> concerned about the fact that RH begins uids with 500,
> while Debian begins with 1000.  If I copied accounts
> directly from passwd file to passwd file, I'd end up
> with a bunch of Debian users with uids between 500 and
> 700.  I've already tested this with several user
> accounts, and it seemed to work fine; I'm just worried
> about things breaking down the road.
> 
> My questions, then, are these:  is there anything
> about this situation that will make Debian break?  Are
> there debianized packages that rely on having normal
> (i.e., non-system user)  uids above 1000?  Is there
> anything
> else about the migration of users that I need to be
> worried about?  I want this to be a very smooth
> transition that takes place at 3am some night;
> ideally, the less attentive users won't even know that
> the change has taken place.

uid's 100 - 999 are reserved for the packaging system/daemons etc.
you won't likely have a problem but it would be better to migrate to
debian policy anyway.  

you can just write a small awk script to take the accounts from your
redhat system (delete all of redhat's system accounts/groups before
running it) to create all the users with proper UIDs on debian, just a
quick not thought out script:

for i in `awk -F: rhpwd '{print $1}'` 
    do adduser --no-create-home --gecos "$(grep ^$i rhpwd | awk -F: '{print $5}')" \
	--home "$(grep ^$i rhpwd | awk -F:'{print $6}')"  $i ; \
	chsh -s "$(grep ^$i | awk -F: '{print $7}')" $i
done

another method would be to use sed to change the uid/gid.  

if you extract the home directories after creating the new user
accounts they should get the new ownership properly as GNU tar is
fairly smart about this sort of thing. 

-- 
Ethan Benson
http://www.alaska.net/~erbenson/

Attachment: pgp6RU7pqmCin.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: