On Fri, Nov 07, 2003 at 07:22:58AM -0200, romildo@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
: Hello.
: : I want to do a fresh install of Fedora Core 1, as I
: have been doing with each Red Hat Linux since version
: 3.0.3 in my home computer.
: : But now that I have more users in the machine, I am
: wondering if there is a way to do a fresh install and
: afterwards restore user passwords from a backup of
: the old Red Hat Linux 9 install. This way users
: will not have to set its password again on first
: login.
Merge in the appropriate user & group entries from your backup into /etc/passwd /etc/shadow and /etc/group (for user, password and group information respectively).
Don't forget /etc/gshadow if you want to go that route.
Do not just overwrite the new files w/the backups. You run the risk of removing new system accts that may have been added in the new version and are necessary for the correct functioninig of a program.
Actually, I would suggest creating the users first, and then just copy the encrypted passwords from the backups of /etc/shasow and /etc/gshadow. That way you get all the home directories created with content that matches your new setup.
-- mads
