Migrating Users from One AIX System to Another AIX System

Answer

This document discusses migrating users from one AIX system to another. This does not include transferring the user's personal data or home directories.

The information in this document applies to AIX 5.2 and above.

Since the files involved in the following procedure are flat ASCII files and their format has not changed from V4 to V5, the users can be migrated between systems running the same or different versions of AIX (for example, from V4 to V5).

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Files that can be copied over

/etc/group
/etc/passwd
/etc/security/group
/etc/security/limits
/etc/security/passwd
/etc/security/.ids
/etc/security/environ
/etc/security/.profile

NOTE: Edit the passwd file so the root entry is as follows:

root:!:0:0::/:/usr/bin/ksh

When you copy the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files, make sure they contain at least a minimum set of essential user and group definitions.

Listed specifically as users are the following:

• root
• daemon
• bin
• sys
• adm
• uucp
• guest
• nobody
• lpd

Listed specifically as groups are the following:

• system
• staff
• bin
• sys
• adm
• uucp
• mail
• security
• cron
• printq
• audit
• ecs
• nobody
• usr

The mkuser.default and mkuser.sys files:

AIX 5.2 and 5.3:
If the bos.compat.links fileset is installed, you can copy the /etc/security/mkuser.default file over. If it is not installed, the file belongs in the /usr/lib/security directory.

If you copy over mkuser.default, changes must be made to the stanzas. Replace group with pgrp, and program with shell. A proper stanza should look like the following:

    user:
           pgrp = staff
           groups = staff
           shell = /usr/bin/ksh
           home = /home/$USER

AIX 6.1 and up:
These files are in /etc/security with a symbolic link in /usr/lib/security to them.  Copy them from /etc/security and move them to the new system.



Additional Files

The following files may also be copied over, as long as the AIX version in the new machine is the same:

/etc/security/login.cfg
/etc/security/user

NOTE: If you decide to copy these two files, open the /etc/security/user file and make sure that variables such as tty, registry, auth1 and so forth are set properly with the new machine. Otherwise, do not copy these two files, and just add all the user stanzas to the new created files in the new machine.

Once the files are moved over, execute the following:

    usrck -t ALL
   pwdck -t ALL
   grpck -t ALL

This will clear up any discrepancies (such as uucp not having an entry in /etc/security/passwd). Ideally this should be run on the source system before copying over the files as well as after porting these files to the new system.

Use of Index Files

If you have many users on the system you may be using index files to allow quicker lookup of users or groups. You can tell if a system is using index files by the presence of files with the extension ".idx" in the /etc and /etc/security directories.

If so do not copy these files over. Copy the regular data files and re-create the indices on the target system using:

mkpasswd -f


ID Conflicts
It is possible to find user ID conflicts when migrating users from older versions of AIX to newer versions. AIX has added new user IDs in different release cycles. These are reserved IDs and should not be deleted. If your old user IDs conflict with the newer AIX system user IDs, it is advised that you assign new user IDs to these older IDs.