Move users from OS X Client to OS X Client

M

mtcutter

Registered
Hi, I have a problem for which I have found no solution after a couple of days of scouring the net.

The scenario: I have a G4 running OS X 10.1.2 - it's my webserver, which has a main web site as well as about 30 private websites for the users. It has developed a tendency to have occasional kernel panics.

I want to build another G4 running 10.1.5 to replace it. To do it with minimal downtime, I want to move the users and their home directories across to the new server while the old one is still running (having warned them not to modify the files) and then cut it over.

The problem: I can find NO way to move the users, complete with passwords etc from the old G4 to the new one! This would be easy using OS X SERVER but using Client it appears to be impossible.

Any suggestions? The most obvious one to me seems to be to make a backup of the nidb, copy it across and restore it but Netinfo Manager complains that it can't find a pid for nibindd - on both machines, the nice newly installed 10.15 one as well as the old kludgy 10.12 box. So, that's no go. I really don't want to have to contact all of these individual people and ask them their login name and password so I can put it onto the new server AGAIN.

This was SO easy under 9.x, you just dragged the Users and Groups Data file across, plonk it in the system folder and reboot...

Help!

Cheers,
Mike
 
if what you want is what I'm thinking you are wanting:

download carbon copy cloner from versiontracker and copy the entire HD onto the other machine, or just some of it.
 
Hi Xaq, will CCC let me just copy the user database across? I had a brief look at it but it seemed to be a warts and all copy - I want to avoid the corrupted bits :)

Thanks for your help!

Cheers,
mike
 
if all you want to copy is the users folder, then you can select on the right which items not to copy. However if you are only copying the users, you can just copy the "users" folder by itself straight from one to another.
 
Thanks, but will it copy the Users themselves? ie not just the /Users folder, but also the users, short names and passwords etc. I guess I should just go and try it :-)

Cheers,
Mike
 
I'm pretty sure it will

btw: did you also post this same thing on MacSlash? I just saw it :) and I figured, oh maybe this will help him :p :rolleyes: :p
 
Hey, yeah! It wasn't there a couple of hours ago when I checked...

All right, my first post to macslash :) I didn't know whether it would get put up - yet another place I've been trying to find help...

I've had a look, CCC deliberately doesn't copy the /var directory (or /etc which seems an odd thing to leave out, given all the config files etc) and so I'm not sure how the users get moved across successfully! (the Netinfo database is in /var/db/netinfo)...very weird.

I wonder who I can nag at Apple for an answer? ;)

Cheers,
Mike
 
Thanks for the help, people - my question got posted on MacSlash with some very helpful responses - the one I needed was this:

So what we need to do is:
1) On the oldserver type "nidump passwd . > passfile"
2) Copy passfile to the new server.
3) On the newservver type "niload passwd . < passfile"

With the caveat that this may cause problems if you have a userid conflict. But with my vanilla server this worked perfectly.

Thanks again for the help! (This could go in a How-To, methinks?)

Cheers,
Mike
 
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