[TriLUG] transitional advice

[Ed Hill]

On Mon, 2003-09-08 at 15:49, Jeff Bollinger wrote:
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> I just got a new PC and I'm wondering what is the best/optimal way to
> move my home directory (which includes my PGP keys in .gnupg) to the new
> box (and new home directory).  The path info should be the same:
> /home/userid on both systems
> 
> I'm going to try and do this over the network so I'm thinking:
> 
> a) giant tar.gz file, scp'd to the new host
> b) rsync the two directories?
> c) cpio?
> 
> What are your suggestions?  If all my . (hidden) files are copied over,
> could that negatively impact the new host?


Hi Jeff,

I've had to accomplish this exact sort of transition for myself and
numerous users on many different Unix/Linux boxes (inc. Solaris, HP-UX,
Irix, and Linux) and I don't recommend that you don't just directly
clone the home dir from the old machine to the new one.  The reason is,
as you suggested, problems with the "dot files".  Many users,
particularly those who've made extensive customizations in .Xclients or
their shell resource files (.cshrc, .profile, ...), may be exposed to
problems so severe that they won't even be able to log onto the
machine.  I've seen it happen more than once.

In the long run, the least painful and most generally applicable fix
that I've found is to copy things so that all the information in the old
home dir becomes a new directory within the new home such as:

  hostA:/home/user1  -->  hostB:/home/user1/old_home

Generally, users who've made extensive customizations will also have the
ability to either re-do, copy, or otherwise adapt these customizations
from their old directories.

The method that you use to perform the copy (rsync, tar, "cp -a", or
something else) usually isn't all that important.  In my experience,
"tar" generally gives the least trouble (*assuming* you have enough
temporary disk space to hold the tar file or files).  And as always you
should pay attention to ownership/permissions issues when you move from
one machine to another ("chown -R $USER.$GROUP $DIR" is mighty helpful).

good luck,
Ed

-- 
Edward H. Hill III, PhD
office:  MIT Dept. of EAPS;  Room 54-1424;  77 Massachusetts Ave.
            Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
email:   eh3 at mit.edu,  ed at eh3.com
URL:     http://web.mit.edu/eh3/
phone:   617-253-0098
fax:     617-253-4464
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