[bonou2]

Hi Guys,

I need some help...

We are migrating an S80 server to a p6 520 server with the same OS version which 5.3TL6SP1, but instead of restoring from the mksysb... my boss wants a freshly installed OS and my problem is... how can I put the user on the new server without re-creating it? DO we need to re-create it? How about their passwords and home directories?

Im going nuts with so many projects if you could help me to broaden my knowledge I'll appreciate it very much.

[kerst1]

Hi,
The following should work. I have used something similar in a script to sync IDs between two boxes on a regular basis. You may not have all of the files listed below.

tar cvf /tmp/SYNCID.tar \
/etc/group \
/etc/passwd \
/etc/security/login.cfg \
/etc/security/passwd \
/etc/security/group \
/etc/security/limits \
/etc/security/user \
/etc/security/ouser \
/etc/security/opasswd \
/etc/security/ogroup \
/etc/security/.ids \
/etc/security/.profile \
/etc/security/environ \
/etc/security/roles \
/etc/security/pwdalg.cfg \
/etc/security/pwdhist.dir \
/etc/security/pwdhist.pag

Also tar up /home. tar cvf /tmp/HOME.tar /home
Then copy the tarballs over to the new box and untar. (tar xvfp SYNCID.tar ; tar xvfp HOME.tar) You can use tools like rsync as well. Or you could NFS mount /home and copy it over. Obviously, you need to be root to do all of this.

[bonou2]

wow! this is great.... i will try this on my migration to a new box nextweek, thanks a lot for your help kerst1.

[ross.mather]

Of course once the users move they won't have synced password anymore. Not a problem - just a warning.

You could also investigate using LDAP or even an Active Directory to provide the user ids for centralised user id management (if you have or want such a thing).

The only other thing you can do - which is nicer if the formats of any of the files listed change between AIX versions is to keep a create user scriipt around which does mkuser for each user id.

Example of creating a user on the command line and setting an initial password is:
mkuser pgrp='staff' groups='staff,oracle' id=555 gecos='bonou2, pSeries Tech Forum' bonou2
echo bonou2:bonou2 | chpasswd