On January 9, 2004 08:36 am, Ben Yau wrote: > > > i recently installed redhat 7.3 and we have 25 users > > > only but in future going to increase. i want to backup > > > users so that when ever server get crash and just > > > reinstall my server and recover this users backup > > > file. which files do i need backup.? /etc/passwd file > > > is enough.? > > > > > > thanks, > > > Kumar. > > > > /etc/passwd > > /etc/group > > /etc/shadow > > /etc/gshadow > > > > Those 4 will get you the user info but you'll still have to recreate home > > directories etc. You would be best to use a script to recreat > > user accounts > > by extracting the usernames etc from these files as opposed to > > just replacing > > the existing ones and trying to get the environments and > > everything in place. > > The tricky part with that would be to create a unique password > > for each user > > and communicate that to them (securely). The shadow file would > > contain the > > passwords but unless you have a good understanding of what you're > > doing in > > there, you can break things. > > Hi Kumar and Pete > > Pete, why would you not backup the home directories along with the /etc > files you mentioned? (plus any system wide environment files you have in > place like /etc/profile or whatever). > > That way after a OS reinstall you just put the /etc files in place, the > /home dirs, and do not have to recreate passwords, homedirs, and > environments? Even though you have a good point that unless you have a > good understanding of wat you're doing in the shadow file, you could break > things, i think it's easier to understand how to restore files than to > create scripts to extract user information, recreate users, create new > passwords, securely transmit to users new passwords , and recreate > environments. > > Just curious > > Ben Y Thats true Ben. I think a good backup routine is really the only way to go. The whole process that was asked about seems a little tedious. I guess my point should have been not to mess with the files but just backup the filesystems :) Pete -- Pete Nesbitt, rhce -- redhat-list mailing list unsubscribe mailto:redhat-list-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-list
