Warning: change_username.sh issue

[Richpark]

I've been using this script as part of a server migration solution that I've built, but if you're using PHP-FPM I don't recommend it.

If there exists a single PHP process with that user when the script runs, it will fail:

usermod: user example is currently used by process 29258
groupmod: group 'example' does not exist

At the point it fails, it's already deleted the group of the same name, so you'll need to re-create the group or PHP will fail to start.

My theory is that it may work if you stop PHP first, run the script and then start PHP again:

/bin/systemctl stop php-fpm74.service
/usr/local/directadmin/scripts/change_username.sh user_old user_new ; /usr/local/directadmin/dataskq
/bin/systemctl start php-fpm74.service

 

[Richpark]

Aha, I wasn't the only one. Someone else hit this problem in 2018:

Post in thread 'Sieve script will not work for main account'

Dec 22, 2018

Hi,

OK, as I had to get this ticket closed, here's what I ended up doing. Note that I changed usernames to something else, but I made sure they have the same length (you'll see why)

Initially I figured to go down the backup & restore path then noticed the change_username.sh and figured that it would probably mess up less things.

For the backup/restore path I had already created a new user "abcdefgh01", so I figured to delete that user again.

Then I tried to run the change user name script:

# ./change_username.sh oomipo abcdefgh01
Killing User processes:
usermod: user oomipo is...

• wila