Move Samba & Users and Groups configuration files

[ndqccxx]

Hi,

I have a File Server running Samba on Fedora Core 6. I'm setting up a new File Server running Fedora Core 9. Is there any way to move configuration files of Samba and Users and Groups to the new Server?

Thanks!

[Ben Cotton]

Sure. Just copy /etc/samba/* somewhere safe until your update is done. For "Users and Groups", I assume you mean the system users. You'll need the following three files:

/etc/passwd (User name and account info)
/etc/shadow (Passwords)
/etc/group (Group names and membership)

You can just copy these directly into place on the new server. If Samba is already running on the new server, you'lll need to restart it.

[ndqccxx]

I did that before but it doesn't work. Only the root user can login locally. And there are no users in Samba Users.

[Ben Cotton]

I did that before but it doesn't work. Only the root user can login locally.

Is that by design, or is that a problem? Your description isn't very clear.

And there are no users in Samba Users.

What file did you copy? /etc/samba/smbusers is the default location on Fedora, but you can look in your smb.conf file to see if it expects it somewhere else. Did you initially set this up through the GUI or by editing the necessary config files?

Could you expand on what your expected behavior is (based on your old server)?

[ndqccxx]

I do these all through GUI. I've copied these files: passwd, shadow, group, gshadow and whole /etc/Samba and /home directory

After reboot, all the users and groups in old Server are exist in User Manager of new Server, but only Root user can login to the new Server's desktop, other users cannot login.

In Samba Server Configuration, all the shared folder in old Server are exist in new Server. In Samba Users, there are no users. But when I re-create new user manually, the was an error "An account for this user already exists"

[Ben Cotton]

After reboot, all the users and groups in old Server are exist in User Manager of new Server, but only Root user can login to the new Server's desktop, other users cannot login.

My first thought is that the home directories for the user need to be created. Since you're just copying the /etc/passwd file, the home directories aren't created. If you go through and create each user's home dir, they should be able to log in.

In Samba Server Configuration, all the shared folder in old Server are exist in new Server. In Samba Users, there are no users. But when I re-create new user manually, the was an error "An account for this user already exists"

This part I'm less sure about. I'll leave it to someone with more Samba experience to answer.