Question

can i restore user name and password created on RHEL 5 to centos 5.3?

Asked by: aloknet21

i have backup of etc/passwd
etc/group
etc/shadow
etc/sudoers

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Asked On
2009-08-28 at 04:04:02ID24689390
Tags

can i restore user name and password created on RHEL 5 to centos 5.3?

Topics

Linux Administration

,

Linux Setup

,

Linux

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Answers

 

by: fosiul01Posted on 2009-08-28 at 04:17:32ID: 25206401

you can use a script to copy username and password from old system to new sytem


its not my script, its @tintin's script, you might have to change it little bit , just copy all username and password from Old mechine and then insert into new mechine ..

http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Linux/Q_23746963.html


as far I knew, you could of just  just copy and past /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow from Old pc to new pc, but i never tryed this. so may be other EE who does this would be able to help you.

also i wil try this by copying from old pc to new pc ,see if it works, i am interested aswell.

but that script concept would work 100%

#!/bin/bash
user=$(grep username: /etc/passwd)
pass=$(grep username /etc/shadow)
 
for host in $(cat /list/of/hosts)
do
  ssh $host "echo \"$user\" >>/etc/passwd"
  ssh $host "echo \"$pass\" >>/etc/shadow"
done

                                              
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by: dainokPosted on 2009-08-28 at 04:18:22ID: 25206406

Sure, just replace the files (do a backup before!). But I suggest you to copy only user entry, not administrative/system ones (bin, daemon, adm, httpd, dbus...).

 

by: aloknet21Posted on 2009-08-28 at 04:29:52ID: 25206456

Hi Fosiul,

its working now. Thanks

 

by: fosiul01Posted on 2009-08-28 at 04:30:46ID: 25206459

so what did you do ??

copy /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow from old pc to new pc ??

 

by: nociPosted on 2009-08-28 at 04:35:30ID: 25206478

There's a couple of things to look after too:

/etc/group  contains all the groups & setting belonging to that password file (and optional /etc/gshadow if passwords for newgrp were used.)

/etc/security/* files are config files for limits & pam etc. you need to evaulate if there are special settings .. (compare the old files to the old originals, and verify them with current settings).
/etc/pam.d/* for special pam scripting, dont blindly copy it but check if they have been customized.

 

by: dainokPosted on 2009-08-28 at 04:42:09ID: 25206520

You should also run pwck and grpck to check if /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group and /etc/gshadow are consistent.

 

by: aloknet21Posted on 2009-08-28 at 04:46:23ID: 25206540

i copied /etc/passwd /etc/shadow /etc/group  /etc/sudoers

 

by: nociPosted on 2009-08-28 at 05:11:46ID: 25206681

more application specific files like sudoers might be needed, think of FTP server configuration, HTTP server configuration etc. But that depends heavily on application that are common to both the old on and the new one.

 

by: fosiul01Posted on 2009-08-28 at 06:04:18ID: 25207131

i was just trying to implement the method ,

the best way i come out is

use tar -cvzf command to make tar file /etc/pasword, /etc/shadow , /etc/groups , /home directory

put the tar files to the new server and the unzip it

i didnot see any problem , i can use same user name and password with home directory as old server



 

by: fosiul01Posted on 2009-08-28 at 09:05:20ID: 25209048

 

by: aloknet21Posted on 2009-09-16 at 04:05:37ID: 31621650

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