[vox-tech] Migration from UNIX to Redhat

[ME]

Ehrhart, Jay said:
> I want to migrate users, passwords and email from an Intergate UNIX box
> to my new Redhat 8.0 server.
>
> I don't know where to start.  How can I make the transition from the
> UNIX box to the Redhat server?

Passwords:
There are really only 4 different (common) password systems that can be
found by combining the following:
shadow/non-shadow
conventional hash/md5 hash

If the password is shadow/non-shadow, then you can oftem work around that,
but hashing algo cant be effectively different.

To test this, copy the password field from the UNIX box to a user's
password field in the other box.

(In Debian, you can choose which of the two hashing algos you want to use.
Not sure about RH.)

See if you can log in as that users on the new box.

When you migrate accounts over, you'll want to set up scripts that try to
use the same UID/GID as the original system. Then populate the new
system's password file with the same uid/gid. (Not a requirements, but
makes file migration easier.) You won't want to copy the *system*
usernames/groups and their associated uid/gid though -- just the users on
the system.

As for mail, there are really two common formats:
mbox and Maildir, though there are some differences in what is stored in
Maildir formats.

For these, a copy of the mail folder (keeping GID/UID in the copy/tar) can
help to move them to the new system.

if mbox, a simple script may help (mbox storage of mail in common spool
often has mboxes that are named after the owner...):
# cd /var/spool/mail
# for i in * ; do chown ${i}.mail $i ; done

You can build other scripts to help you.

(also, by populating the new password file with each users same uid,
copying of files from the old system that retain uid/gid will make
ownership =issues not so much of a problem.)

The above is a start, but not a complete view. It should be enough to get
you started.


-ME