I havent had much luck with finding an answer to this one. This HAS to be a common question.. I must not have my google hat on today

I need to move a few hundred user accounts and their passwords from a RH9 server to a SuSE Linux 9.1 Pro server.

Is this as simple as just copying /etc/passwd file from one box to other?

I don't need to move home directories, these are all POP3 accounts. So it should be fairly simple.

Thanks very much! Sorry if this is the wrong forum to post to.. Linux Software or Linux Network was the closest forum I could match to. which should this go? hehe

Any links to good resources or simple steps would be MUCH appreciated!

That would be /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow (if
you're not authenticating against some other
mechanism I'm not aware of, e.g. PAM and a
postgresql database or LDAP or Radius) ...


You want to make sure that you don't copy
the files though, just the relevant section with
the users ... the daemons and other users may
well have different numerical IDs in those two
distros, and just copying those files would then
screw the system up badly.

In other words, only entries > 500 (or 1000)
should be copied).


Cheers,
Tink

Awesome, that helps a lot, and puts me on the right track. Thanks muchly

Most welcome :)

Hope my explanation wasn't too exhaustive ;)


Cheers,
Tink

Not at all. I copied all accounts greater than 500, and deleted a few that I noticed would cause a conflict with some apps (like mailman)..

Changed all the logins from /bin/bash (They were pop3 only accounts.. bad design decision on my part on the old server.. UGH!) to a bogus nologin shell.

It works GREAT! Thanks!