Hi there,

I was wondering if there's a way to save the users and passwords that I've created so far with folder permissions in a Red Hat 9 installation. I'm having problems with the server and I think that the best solution is to reinstall it, but I don't want to lose my users and permissions. I have mounted /home in a separate physical RAID disk, so the files will be preserved.

Is this possible? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

copying /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow is a must, and if you're using any other auth system (eg: ldap) you'll want to back that up as well

'cp -pR' /home will copy and preserve uid/gid/permissions and recurse directories

Of course this covers just the bare minimum - there amy be a lot of files in /etc/that you will want to keep (and maybe some that are part of your current problem)

If you're sure that you or someone else borked the server somehow then maybe a reinstall is in order. Maybe. You might be better off posting a question on how to find and fix the problem, epecially if you're on a more or less default install. Just my $0.02

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. In fact, I considered all the possibilities before thinking in formatting the machine. The problem started when I tried to update the kernel, and the computer didn´t boot anymore. I tried reinstalling over the old files, and the system was left in an unconsistent state. Apparently, the server is ok, but when I tried to install a backup software, it didn´t work. I tested it in another box with the same operating system and it installed flawlessly. In conclusion, I´m gonna reinstall the server, taking advantege that it is not in production right now, to achieve stability and reliability before it´s too late (more applications, more users, etc.)

I´ll post back my results after performing the reinstall, regarding users and permissions.

Thanks for your help again.