Re: [cobalt-users] Will copying password files work???

["Carrie Bartkowiak" <ravencarrie@xxxxxxxx>]

> I'm migrating users and sites from a RaQ3 to a RaQ4. Will copying
the
> /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow files allow me to retain my users
passwords
> without my having to know them all???

Not exactly.
You must make all of your sites and users through the GUI first. The
RaQ4 will then make a new passwd and shadow file based on the order
that you added the sites & users. If you compare the two passwd files,
and the two shadow files, you'll see that for each user, parts of the
line (between colons) are VERY different.
So when making the users, give them all some generic password. You
don't need to remember it or write it down, you're the admin - you can
change it at any time and you'll *be* changing it later on back to
whatever the user had it as.

Contrary to its name, no passwords are kept in the passwd file.
They're in the shadow file.

What you want to do rather than just copy the old RaQ3 shadow file
over the new RaQ4 shadow file, is to go through both files line by
line and copy ONLY the password from the old shadow file to the new
shadow file. Be sure to backup the shadow and shadow- files on the new
machine first, and then copy it over to shadow- with "cp shadow
shadow-" (no quotes). You must do this as root. The password is the
long string of characters after the colon which follows the user's
login. Be sure to copy everything between those two colons, even
strange characters like slashes and periods.

CarrieB