CentOS - Aug 2010 - Moving users from Debian-based distro to CentOS

I have a Debian machine with four users that I plan on migrating to
CentOS. As per Debian habits the UIDs start with 1000.

Is it enough to reuse the Debian /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files
over? Or will I need to configure some other things? I had considered
just creating four new users starting from UID 500 then chown -R -ing
the user's home directories, but I find that invasive and possibly
error prone (maybe there are files that are not owned by them).

All advice appreciated. Thanks.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://gibberish.co.il
http://what-is-what.com

On 08/08/10 10:47 PM, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I have a Debian machine with four users that I plan on migrating to
> CentOS. As per Debian habits the UIDs start with 1000.
>
> Is it enough to reuse the Debian /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files
> over? Or will I need to configure some other things? I had considered
> just creating four new users starting from UID 500 then chown -R -ing
> the user's home directories, but I find that invasive and possibly
> error prone (maybe there are files that are not owned by them).
>
> All advice appreciated. Thanks.
>

I'd compare the passwd files, noting the predefined system accounts.   
when I copy over /etc/passwd entries, I generally cut/paste them, not 
just copy the whole file.  of course, the same entries for /etc/shadow

On 08/08/10 10:47 PM, Dotan Cohen wrote:
> I have a Debian machine with four users that I plan on migrating to
> CentOS. As per Debian habits the UIDs start with 1000.
>
> Is it enough to reuse the Debian /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files
> over? Or will I need to configure some other things? I had considered
> just creating four new users starting from UID 500 then chown -R -ing
> the user's home directories, but I find that invasive and possibly
> error prone (maybe there are files that are not owned by them).
>
> All advice appreciated. Thanks.
>
why not use useradd with the -u uid option so they match?

don't forget groups, btw.   -g, -G, and create the groups with the same 
GID's.

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I have a Debian machine with four users that I plan on migrating to
> CentOS. As per Debian habits the UIDs start with 1000.
>
> Is it enough to reuse the Debian /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files
> over? Or will I need to configure some other things? I had considered
> just creating four new users starting from UID 500 then chown -R -ing
> the user's home directories, but I find that invasive and possibly
> error prone (maybe there are files that are not owned by them).
>
> All advice appreciated. Thanks.
I prefer to start my users at 1000, even on RH/CentOS systems.

Check out the libuser.conf file which has configuration for the
minimum user ID (LU_UIDNUMBER). I set to mine to 1000.

On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 1:47 AM, Dotan Cohen <dotancohen at gmail.com>
wrote:
> I have a Debian machine with four users that I plan on migrating to
> CentOS. As per Debian habits the UIDs start with 1000.
>
> Is it enough to reuse the Debian /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files
> over? Or will I need to configure some other things? I had considered
> just creating four new users starting from UID 500 then chown -R -ing
> the user's home directories, but I find that invasive and possibly
> error prone (maybe there are files that are not owned by them).
>
Durn.... pushed send before I finished thinking..

You'd want to use a find by uid with the exec option..

find . -uid 12345 -exec chown johndoe {} \;

Keep in mind that if you have NFS mounts you'll need to synchronize
the uids on both systems.