Exporting AEM users, groups and ACL permissions and importing to a different instance

[amoresi1]

I've searched high and low for details on how to package up users and their ACL permissions from a source AEM instance and import to a destination and the user's ACL permissions are maintained with no luck whatsoever.  When I install the package on the destination it imports the user and their associated groups but the permissions are never carried over from source to destination.  Any feedback would be much appreciated.  We are running AEM 6.0 SP3.

[ZygW · Accepted solution]

Have you tried:
https://adobe-consulting-services.github.io/acs-aem-commons/features/acl-packager.html

Purpose

Frequently, access control entries need to be copied from one environment to another without copying the actual content itself, just the access control entries. This user interface allows you to define and build packages containing access control entries for particular paths and/or particular principals.

[kautuk_sahni]

Hi 

Please have a look at this community article:-

Link:- http://www.hsufengko.com/home/copy-users-groups-permissions-acls-between-adobe-cq-instances

//copy permissions (ACLs) pertaining to all nodes

Or 

Please have a look at the forum post catering similar problem:-

Link:- https://forums.adobe.com/thread/966911

//How to create a CQ package to export all the users and their permissions.

I hope this would help you.

Thanks and Regards

Kautuk Sahni

[jayproulx]

Highly, highly worth mentioning, if you use the ACS ACL packager, be aware that it exports the whole _rep_policy.xml, not just the specific permissions for your authorizables.  This more than likely means that package will not be compatible with any future versions of AEM.  I.e. you're upgrading from 6.1 to 6.2, those _rep_policy.xml's may have entries that conflict with the latest updated policies in 6.2.

If you're exporting, you'll want to hand-filter those policies and exclude anything that's not one of the authorizables that you just exported.