Re: Changing UID's?

[cr <cr@orcon.net.nz>]

On Sunday 22 June 2003 00:04, ajlewis2@intac.com wrote:
> In linux.debian.user, you wrote:
> > I'm 'cr', UID 1000 in my Debian setup.    However, under RedHat I was
> > UID 500 and all my heaps of data (left over from RedHat) is filed as 
> > owner 500  group 500.     This means I can't readily access it without
> > changing something.
> >
(snip rest of my own post for brevity)

>
> I usually do this when I first install a new distro and before I mount my
> regular /home partition.
>
> adduser --uid 500 ajlewis2
>
> After I have made the user and have the /home/ajlewis2 directory I edit
> fstab so that my /home partition will be mounted on the next reboot and
> then do 'mount /home'  Now I have all my personal files in /home/ajlewis2
> and my uid on the new distro is 500 like it was on the old distro.  I came
> from RedHat a few years ago and am still using that original /home
> partition.  I have shared it between distros a couple of times and had a
> few configuration files overwritten; so be careful if you do that.
>
> If you make this change after you have a bunch of files already on your
> debian user directory, then you will have to deal with changing those, but
> since it is a new install that should be minimal.
>
> Anita

Well, while I was using RedHat, I kept /home on /dev/hdc2, and the operating 
system on /dev/hda.   That way, when I installed a new version by swapping 
/dev/hda for a spare one, all my settings were kept intact.  

However, with this Debian install, /home is on /dev/hda along with the rest 
of the distro.   This is partly by accident (since I forgot to tell the 
installer that /home was on /dev/hdc2 if indeed the installer gives that 
option).   However, I've concluded that Debian is probably sufficiently 
different from RedHat that importing a bunch of RH configuration could have 
unpredictable results.   I just copied across the /Mail directory and left it 
at that.

As to my UID, I changed it with  usermod   and everything seems to work, so 
far.   

Thanks

cr
... user 500  - half a Debian user   :)