On Thu, Aug 26, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Todd Cary todd@aristesoftware.com wrote:

I am currently running CentOS 4 and want to install CentOS 5. To do that, I plan to install a new HD in my server box onto which CentOS will be installed.  I will then copy the "home" directory from the old drive or from a backup on a USB drive, however I am not sure how to handle the Users/Passwords from the old installation.

Depends on what kind of security you are running. If it's just plain vanilla Linux login security, save the old /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow (and /etc/group) files, then restore the lines for accounts/groups you added on 4 to the new one that gets installed on 5.

Remember, though, that when you do a fresh installation, you will be asked to create a user account for initial logins. Make sure you match one of your old ones, or use a completely different one you can delete later.

That should do it.

Mark