[PLUG] Moving a lot of user accounts

["Jason Wertz" <JWERTZ@dccc.edu>]

I'm getting ready to take an old box out of commission and replace it
with a shiny new Dell 2550. To do so requires that I move a bunch of
user accounts onto the newly configured machine (running RH7.2). Moving
the user directories is trivial but my question is...what is the best
way to go about actually recreating the user accounts on the new
machine?

Is it possible to just copy the old lines out of the /etc/passwd &
/etc/shadow for the users and paste them into the files on the new box
(I'm guessing the answer to that is no) or do I actually need to run
useradd and recreate each account again from scratch? I've never done
this before with so many accounts (usually just an admin account or 2
that could just as quickly be recreated by useradd). I'm basically
looking to do this in the laziest...I mean most efficient...fashion
possible. What is the best practice in this case?

Also, in reference to some of the emails about Dell. Their server
products work very well with stock RH installs and I haven't had any
real complaints. They seem to use all commodity hardware and nothing too
bleeding edge, but then again maybe RH is doing all the work to function
on Dell hardware and not the other way around. 

Thanks.

Jason Wertz
Senior Technology Specialist / WebMaster
Delaware County Community College
ph: 610-325-2771
fax: 610-325-2820
http://learn.dccc.edu/~jason





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