migrating users

[Micheal Patterson]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Rob Evers" <rob at debank.tv>
To: <freebsd-questions at freebsd.org>
Sent: Thursday, November 27, 2003 7:50 AM
Subject: migrating users


> Hi all,
>
> I'm going to move move my sendmail server to a new machine.
> The new machine will use postfix and virtual users, now what I cant't
> figure out is how to migrate the users (and keep the old passwords).
> Does anyone know of a procedure to extract plain text passwords for all
> users ?
> Or maybe just pointers where to look.
>
> Thanks
>
> Rob Evers
>


Rob,

There's a really simple solution to this that so far I've not seen anyone
mention. Especially if you want to make an exact duplicate of the existing
password file and you have a system with a ssh / telnet client that you can
copy / paste from / into. Just run vipw on the existing mail server, scroll
through the listing so it's in your buffer, copy the password file into your
clipboard, ssh into the new system, run vipw and paste it into the new
system. When you exit vipw, it will update the database and you're done.
I've done this when moving to new mail servers in the past.

--

Micheal Patterson
Network Administration
Cancer Care Network
405-917-0600