Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 22:28:27 -0400 (EDT) From: Jason Hunt <leth@primus.ca> To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: David Zeibin <dzeibin@ualberta.ca> Subject: Re: Successful user/mail/etc migration to a new system from old system? Message-ID: <20021012221154.B67375-100000@lethargic.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <B9CCE7CB.66CC%dzeibin@ualberta.ca>
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On Fri, 11 Oct 2002, David Zeibin wrote: > I have an older box with about 20 users and all their related mail and such. > I'm making a new FreeBSD box, and now I want to, essentially, transfer all > the user accounts (with passwords and everything) and all the mail to the > new system. I have the two boxes talking to each other already, and I will > eventually have them configured (network, Sendmail, Apache, etc) > identically. The new machine will physically replace the old machine. > > Is the switch as easy as, basically, copying the entire /usr/home directory > plus the appropriate things in /etc (needed password files, etc), and > /var/relatedmailstuff? What should I watch for? The Apache things are easy > enough, but I'm a bit worried about Sendmail, especially if I forget > something and the new box decides not to work right when it's live. > The best thing to do is first get all of the services configured properly, followed by all of the user accounts. If you don't know passwords, you should be able to use vipw and paste the lines from /etc/master.passwd on the old system into the new one. Once this is done you should just need to move /usr/home and /var/mail over. I can't think of anything else that you would need, other than service-specific files/directories. Remeber that you do have an advantage here because you will still have the old system to fall back onto if needed. As someone else said, back-ups are important too :) So, obviously test everything before getting rid of the old server. We usually keep old systems around for a few weeks after merging/upgrading before getting rid of them, just in case. > As well, if someone could explain how to maintain all the permissions > properly, that'd be wonderful. > I would try using 'tar -p', or 'cp -Rp' if you want to use NFS. I would recommend tar+gzip or +bzip. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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