[lug] Migrating users

[bgiles at coyotesong.com]

> On 2/22/07, Paul Nowosielski <paul at celebrityaccess.com> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I'm in the middle of migrating our WWW/FTP server to a new box.
>> I have many ftp users that grab data feeds from our server.
>> I'm wondering if I can just copy /etc/shadow and /etc/passwd files to
>> the new
>> server or will I have to actually add the users manually.
>
> I have successfully done that in the past.

Not so fast, it depends on what apps you're running and how they're set
up.  If it's basic Apache authentication of static content then you just
need the .htpasswd files in the document tree.  If your webapp is more
sophisticated you'll need to do more work -- anything from copying some
extra files to installing and configuring a full database.

FTP, on the other hand.... let's just say that there's a bullet-pocked
wall for any sysadmin who still uses system accounts for FTP access. 
Again you'll need to do research to discover how authentication is handled
and copy over those files.

So the first step is figuring out exactly what you have.  Which webapps,
which ftp server....