Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2002 08:33:53 -0500 From: "DaleCo, S.P.---'the solutions people'" <daleco@daleco.biz> To: "David Zeibin" <dzeibin@ualberta.ca>, <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Successful user/mail/etc migration to a new system from oldsystem? Message-ID: <010701c271f4$029a70f0$fa00a8c0@DaleCoportable> References: <B9CCE7CB.66CC%dzeibin@ualberta.ca>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Hi, David: I note that you've not been answered (on the list, at least) for 11 hours or so, so here's my opinion(s), lame though they be<?>: You'll be OK as long as you have backups of everything!! Users can forgive downtime much easier than lost email..... It seems you're wanting a 'silver bullet' on one hand, but you show by requesting information (URL's) etc., that you're not afraid of the work, and want more understanding. I don't know of any automatic apps to do this sort of thing, but I don't see that this'd be that hard. Perhaps 'tar' is able to handle this, fox example. Tar has the -p (preserve) option for permission handling, this should handle files from /etc/mail and /var/mail...? I'd just tarball up /var/mail and /etc/ as root, untar everything in a "work" dir on the new box, and 'mv' stuff where necessary. In the case of /var/mail, you probably could just extract a /var/mail tarball in place ... I think 'mv' will preserve your permissions, so if you can convince 'tar' to do so, you should be OK in this regard. Probably you'd want to just insert the old /etc/password entries into the new file, you might try using diff and patch. Don't forget to remake the passwd db afterwards, and don't forget files like /etc/groups and so forth. You didn't mention, but I assume the old box only does mail, and no one has shell access, so no homedirs, cron jobs, etc. Good luck, Kevin Kinsey DaleCo, S.P. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Zeibin" <dzeibin@ualberta.ca> To: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 9:40 PM Subject: Successful user/mail/etc migration to a new system from oldsystem? > Hello all, > > 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. > > If anyone has any good sites they could point me too, or some advice, it'd > be much appreciated. > > I've found a few things, but everything seems terribly cryptic or lacking in > detail: > > http://www.freebsddiary.org/user-transfer.php > http://www.samag.com/documents/s=1153/sam0103h/0103h.htm > > As well, if someone could explain how to maintain all the permissions > properly, that'd be wonderful. > > Thank you so absolutely very much in advance! > > > Dave To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?010701c271f4$029a70f0$fa00a8c0>