SUMMARY: Solaris 2.6 install, but wish to keep existing user database, etc.

From: Craig H. Barker (cbarker@afseo2.eglin.af.mil)
Date: Thu Feb 05 1998 - 09:11:42 CST


Thank you to the board for the quick reply.

Original Question:
> I am about to upgrade a SPARCserver 10 model 512 from Solaris 2.3 to Solaris 2.6.
> I would prefer to simply do an "upgrade", but from people I have talked to and from reading
> the SUMMARY archives, I can tell that this is not practible and may not be possible.
> I have about 100 users on this system. Is there a way to preserve the user database
> while doing a fresh install of the Solaris 2.6 operating system? I guess what I am asking
> is can I tar the /etc directory to a non OS file system, then replace my newly installed
> /etc directory with files from my old /etc (i.e. passwd)? Or is there a better approach?

Solution:

The concensus was to copy the entire /etc directory to another partition, perform a
fresh install of Solaris 2.6, then selectively update the components of /etc/passwd,
/etc/shadow, /etc/vfstab, dfstab, /etc/group, /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/sendmail.cf from
the old saved /etc/ directory. Seems like a pain in the ---, but I guess that is the way
I will proceed.

Kelly Fergason says that the upgrade option will work, especially if I go from 2.3 to 2.5.X,
then to 2.6. I have read, and been lead to believe this would not work, but like she
correctly points out, "I believe it will work, and I don't believe you lose anything by trying".
Good point Kelly, I'll give it a shot.

Thank you to the following people for their quick response:

Kelly Fergason
Mike Blanford
Niall O Broin
Mr. Venkat D.
John Reynolds
David Foster
David Thorburn-Gundlach
Andrew Ho
Thomas Anders



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