Copying Linux Configurations - Suggestions

[Jeff Ohlhausen]

Hi all,
Here's my situation. I have two linux boxes in a cluster. I would like to keep them as similar as possible in terms of printer configurations and users. Is there an easy and safe way to copy printer configurations and user setups and passwords from one linux system to another?

Here is my configuration:
SuSE Linux 8.1

Regards,
Jeff

[Rick Garland · Accepted solution]

For printers, copy the /etc/printcap file from systemA to systemB

For users, you will want to copy the /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group, and the home dirs.

[Ivan Ferreira]

To maintain the user accounts, use a directory server, like LDAP, NIS+ or NIS.

Configure one as mater and the other as replica/slave.

For printers, depends if you are using LPRng or CUPS. You need to copy the configuration files, /etc/printcap, /etc/cups and the spool directories for the printers.

Use rsync to copy the configuration files.

[Jeff Ohlhausen]

Hi,
I am using cups. Do I need to copy the whole /etc/cups?

Jeff

[Ivan Ferreira]

For simplicity, I will say YES.

[Jeff Ohlhausen]

Hi,
It seems to work from the lp perspective. However, when I go to:
yast2 -> printers
Then when I look at the configuration I see many printers iwth the status:
Name Type Ready
correct_name -not yast2- unknown

Any thoughts?
Jeff

[Steven E. Protter]

I vote for LDAP authentication after normalizing the configuration files above.

SEP

[Arunvijai_4]

Hi,

It's better to keep all user authentication using LDAP or NIS.

-Arun

[dirk dierickx]

you can use several things to keep systems in sync. above mentioned several things for user management and printers.
but for configurations you can use things like cfengine or more simple when executing commands, use ssh remotely and execute them on the 2 host simultaniously.