How to copy linux user from server to server.

IRJ

Extract user, password, and group information from the 4 following files

Find the user(s) you want to copy. Copy the entire line for each user.

example:
user:x:1001:1001::/home/user:/bin/bash

vi /etc/passwd

Do the same for the shadow file.

vi /etc/shadow

Now on the group files. You will want to copy your user line, but you will also want to copy any lines that much any relevant groups.

vi /etc/group
vi /etc/gshadow

Now if are using key authentication you will need to copy
/home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys to the new server.

First you will need to create the directories

mkdir /home/user
mkdir /home/user/.ssh

Then copy authorized_keys file.

ssh-copy-id myuser@remoteserver

or

scp myuser@remoteserver:/home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys /home/user/.ssh/authorized_keys

Dashrender

I know a company I used to work for would push out files to severs to build the users on all of them across the company - I'm assuming it was something the four files you mention above.

why not use a centralized login authority, like Active Directory? Of course not AD, since this is Linux (not that you can't)

DustinB3403

@Dashrender Because you might want to have separate systems that all have the same set of user creds and certified keys for the sole purpose of IGNORING ALL BEST PRACTICE EVER.

stacksofplates

I know you were just explaining how to do it but this is a simple task with Ansible.

- name: Ensure user exists
  user:
    name: Joe
    state: present
    password: "password_hash"
    groups: wheel, libvirt

Instead of needing the hash up front you can do things like:

{{ Password1234 | password_hash('sha512') }}