[K12OSN] Moving HOME directories

[Les Mikesell]

ahodson at elp.rr.com wrote:
> Happy New Year list
> 
> One of my Xmas presents (I wish) a 1435 PowerEdge Dell (64AMD) server for a local elementary school just arrived, and I need to move all the student directories with their configurations from the old server. I've transfered file content before, but the lab assistant has spent many days tweaking each student's home with apps and I hate to have to tell her "please do it over". The new server is running the 5.0 OEL 64Bit version of Centos - the old one runs just plain Centos. What is the best way of accomplishing something like this?
> 


Start on the old machine:

cd /home
rsync -avH -essh . new_machine:/home
(I like to use . as the source because then you don't have to remember 
the syntax details about whether a directory level would be created or 
not).

You'll also have to be sure the usr id numbers in  /etc/passwd files 
match between system if you aren't using LDAP.  You can do this by 
adding users in the same order or with the same webmin bulk-add, or by 
copying the entries for users with uids >500 from the old /etc/passwd, 
shadow, group, and gshadow files.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com