Upgrading old RH server

[Kevin Kofler]

Ashley M. Kirchner wrote:
>     We have an old RH7.3 server that holds all of our user accounts.
> I'm in the process of upgrading everything to FC10 and looking at
> /etc/shadow I'm noticing some differences in the way the passwords are
> encrypted/stored.

Different hashing algorithms. (The new one is more secure.)

>     I tried simply copying the old shadow file to a new FC10 server and
> it seems to work just fine, however I wonder if I'm not breaking
> something else by doing that.  So, what's the proper way to do this?  I
> really don't want to have to reset everyone's password (at least not
> till they reach their forced expiration.)

There's no way to convert the passwords automatically as the hashes used are
not reversible by design (otherwise it would just be cheap obfuscation and
add no real security).

        Kevin Kofler