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I'm the process of migrating an NIS server from one machine running Ubuntu 9.10 to a new one running Ubuntu 14.04.4 Server, and following these instructions:

How do I replace an NIS master server?

The plan is to run the NIS makefile on the new machine, set up one test NIS client for that machine's domain to make sure the "map" gets pushed out correctly, and if it works without issues, to go ahead and add the remaining clients' IP addresses.

In step 3 of that guide, it says to copy over all of the passwords, groups, shadow files from the old server to the new one. I will try to do this with an SCP -P command, where the local will be the 14.04.4 machine and the remote will be the old machine. I've noticed in the 14.04.4 machine that in /etc/ there already exists passwords, groups, and shadow files. I have not added any users to the 14.04.4 machine. Should I be concerned about overwriting any of these files, and will SCP allow me to overwrite the files?

I'm not an expert in NIS and have never attempted anything like this before so any advice is greatly appreciated. I cannot switch to RHEL or any other *nix OS as this is in a university lab environment so choice of OS is not my call.

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    I wonder why you ask, as its a lab server and not yet in prod. What are you loosing if it dont work? time? :)
    – yagmoth555 ♦
    Jul 24, 2016 at 2:01
  • Time constraints, yes, and more of a domain changeover problem. The domain currently pointing to the old machine that clients are using to login locally will be switched over to the new machine tomorrow by the department sysadmin.
    – user02103012
    Jul 24, 2016 at 2:09
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    If you didn't have an /etc/passwd and /etc/group file on a system, you wouldn't be able to run any processes or login at all. NIS still needs an /etc/passwd file. You need a configuration management system. (I didn't realize anyone still used NIS!)
    – Karen B
    Jul 24, 2016 at 9:55

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I've noticed in the 14.04.4 machine that in /etc/ there already exists passwords, groups, and shadow files

That is normal and expected.

Should I be concerned about overwriting any of these files

Perhaps. At the very least you should make sure that you know any relevant passwords for accounts and groups on the old system. You should also audit the passwd/shadow and group files on both systems and ensure that (for example) a simple copy will not remove an account that exists on the new system but not the old one. There are other things too that will need looking at, the UID/GID for accounts may differ etc. It is probably better to merge the standard files from /etc.

The instructions you are using are somewhat terse and make a number of assumptions one of which is that you kind of know what you're doing. I think you need to step back and do some more research. In particular you should figure out how your current NIS is configured, where the maps are and whether the /etc files really need to be copied.

Will SCP allow me to overwrite the files

It should do yes.

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