Planning a Upgrade (5.2.1 --> 5.3)

[Toomas Aas]

Hi!

> Do you know of any utilities that I can use to read through my existing
> /etc/master.passwd file and dump usernames and plain text passwords to a
> file?

You don't need to get the plain text passwords. It's sufficient to get 
the password hashes as they are in master.passwd, because when you move 
them to the new system they still represent the same passwords.

The way I would proceed in your situation is this:

Open the files /etc/passwd, /etc/master.passwd and /etc/group in text 
editor and look for non-system users/groups (the ones you've added 
yourself). Copy over the relevant lines to backup files in secure 
location. Of course, make sure to not change the original files.

Once you have 5.3 installed, open /etc/group in text editor and add the 
lines you saved from your original /etc/group. Do not modify the lines 
representing system groups.

Then issue the command 'vipw'. This opens your master.passwd file in 
vi, so you better know how to use vi ;-). Go to end of file and paste 
the lines that you saved from your original master.passwd. Exit, saving 
the changes. Make sure that the home directories specified in your 
newly-added lines exist.

This should be it.

--
Toomas Aas | toomas.aas at raad.tartu.ee | http://www.raad.tartu.ee/~toomas/
* No, `Eureka' is Greek for `This bath is too hot.'