Migrating Sendmail Accounts to a New Server

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

I am setting up a new system that will replace the current sendmail server. The current server is running Sendmail 8.13.1 on a trusted HP-UX 10.20 system, while the newer model will be running Sendmail 8.13.4 on a Fedora Core 4 system that was hardened by Bastille Linux. Both systems have MailScanner, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV installed although the Linux box has newer versions of the programs.

My plan is to tar the existing mailboxes on the older server and extract them onto the replacement. I had several questions in regards to this plan:

1. Will simply tarring and then extracting the existing mailboxes work, or are there further steps involved?
2. Do the owners of the mailboxes in question need to have local accounts on the new server or are having the mailboxes alone enough?

The configuration settings for Sendmail, MailScanner, SpamAssassin, and ClamAV on the new server will be the same as those on the older one. I will also be running the newaliases command on the new server after I modify the aliases file.

Any comments, ideas, and suggestions are welcome.

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

Migrate the user accounts.

If possible give them the same numeric user id as they had on the HP-UX machine.

Then tar up the /var/mail boxes, transfer and untar.

This should do it.

If you use mail readers that store data in the usres home directory, that data will need to be migrated as well.

SEP

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

Is there a utility that will help facilitate migrating user accounts from HP-UX to Linux?

[Mancboy]

you'll first need to untrust the HP system, then you can just copy the entries in the password file across.
Next, type pwconv on the linux box, it should (in theory) create the shadow entries for each user you have copied across.

I've used this method previously and it worked fine, sounds like a hack, but then isn't that what linux is about? ;-}

You'll need to :
1) tar / untar the home areas
2) check that the UIDs are not already in use on the linux box
3) ensure that you don't copy over any system usernames (like root)
4) re-trust the HP box (takes about 1 minute)

[Andrew Kaplan]

Hi there --

Thanks for your reply concerning using the pwconv utility. One question, as stupid as it may sound, I would still need to manually create the home directories for the users even though pwconv would populate the
/etc/passwd and shadow files. Correct?

[Mancboy]

hello,
yes the step 1 bit I wrote about tarring and untarring the home areas will do the copy for you.

Assuming you've got /home on both servers (and the both boxes have large enough /tmp etc areas where you can deposit the archives).

1) on the hp box : cd /home
2) tar cvf /tmp/homes.tar
3) ftp homes.tar to the linux box
4) on the linux box: cd /home
5) tar xvpf /tmp/homes/tar

alternatives are:
1) to "export /home" on the hp box and "mount hpbox:/home /home2" on the linux box. Then on the linux box "cd /home; mv /home2/* ."
2) use backup s/w to backup to tape from the hp box and then restore from tape to the linux box
3) tar the output over a network pipe (I remember seeing this once, very clever but I can't rememer how it went :-( )