From: "Adam Flinton" 


"Jeff Shultz"  wrote in message
news:cc6euu8kr25a05ik2d2hnbc13s6vq8fgtu{at}4ax.com...
> On Thu, 28 Nov 2002 17:14:52 -0000, "Adam Flinton"
>  wrote:
>
> >
> >Antti.....stick with Mandrake coz then I can help 
> >
> >Adam
> >
> Let's try this on.. I just freed up my last OS/2 box for whatever I
> want to use it at. It was functioning as a router/firewall/nat box,
> but that function just got taken over by an Actiontec 1520 DSL
> gateway. Including port forwarding. Oh - and it was and is still
> running Seti.
>
> So now I've got this AMD K6-2 400Mhz with about 256mb of RAM and
> RIVA-TNT2 Vanta in it. Fair sized hard drives... and no definable
> mission.
>
> So, if I wanted to use it to replace my current Mandrake box... I
> figure that I would do at a minimum the following:
>
> Load Mandrake 9.0 on it.
>
> Copy /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow from the original box to it.
> Copy /home
> Copy large chunks of /etc (like /etc/postfix and /etc/named.conf) as
> needed.
>

The easiest would be to  manually add all the users unless you have a lot
of them. Another possiblitiy would be to use one of the network server
passwording (stuff like Winbind) things. Set that up on one machine &
then use that as a central user/pw service.

Anyway check:

http://www.linux-mag.com/cgi-bin/printer.pl?issue=2001-01&article=authentica
tion

Re the config files.....this is one of my pet gripes / wish list things wrt
backups. I would love to see an easy to use ability (inc GUI) where you
could define a config file to be in a kinda backup set called config files.
i.e. using a tool such as linuxconf of the mandrake CC it should not just
do the reload etc but it should ask you "I have changed this config
file from it's default setting, do you want it adding to the config_backup
group" or set of something like that.

The thing to do is to run down all the services etc the present box is
running & then create a text file with the paths to the relevant config
files (or in the case of DNS say the folder(s) with all the various domains
you're dns'ing for). You then can (a) keep it up to date & (b) write a
little something in the lang of your choice to copy them complete with
paths to a folder called "config_backup". I.e. it just reads each
line in & works out File|folder & copies either that file (if file)
or the contents of the folder (if folder) with the same path to the back_up
folder.

I used to have something similar written in bash & I'll have a look. Do
it once & then keep it. In fact keep it & keep it up to date. Mine
is called server_conf.txt but I've amended it to also back up all sort of
other stuff (e.g. my Java App server conf files). I would advise not mixing
this up with app/data backup stuff as the list gets out of hand.

An example:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~voorburg/backup.html

Yes you would have to backup/copy  /home as well.

You can automate this by setting up samba on the new box (& the basic
networking) & then sharing / as root you can then mount the / as say
"MyNewMachine/" & then copy stuff across i.e. copy
/backup_config/ >
/MyNewMachine/ etc.

Another common method is to create a dir called "config_files"
(or whatever you feel like) & then copy/move all the config files you
use to that e.g for XF86

ln -s /config_files/etc/XF86Config /etc/XF86Config

> Would this accomplish the task of transferring the users and their
> files from one system to another? There would be a fair amount of
> other stuff to move as well - Apache stuff to begin with.
>

I would manually add the users & then copy the /home in. Re Apache etc
see above. I'm sure there is a better & quicker way but I've just
always found it easier to add users manually as often I want different
setting per user (& different users) on different machines. e.g. most
of the db'es try/want to create their own user & as such if you're not
running Oracle or Db2 or MySQL or PostGreSQL then adding their users is not
neccesarily a good thing (esp if added with the default password etc).
Again though I would separate out config files from app files & data.
It's a matter of planning & forthought. At work I have to live within
the stds set out by the customer or Lawsons wrt to all this as they've
worked all this out in the mid 18th century . e.g. where to put
config files, whether to use symlinks or a backup script with a list of
files/dirs to be backed up. I'm not allowed to touch the users stuff
(passwords, accounts etc) as I'm not an admin & frankly in Sweden
that's done via NDS etc so....




Adam

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