Cron ORPHAN (no passwd entry)


 
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Operating Systems Linux Cron ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
# 1  
Old 02-11-2009
Cron ORPHAN (no passwd entry)

I am using the standard vixie-cron am seeing the following my logs :
Code:
crond[3293]: (username) ORPHAN (no passwd entry)

Ordinarily this is a simple matter, there is no corresponding user, but I am using central authentication and the username does exist and is usable via the standard nsswitch mechanism, so all other programs work with it, pam, ssh etc.. For example, I can do crontab -e -u username and edit this very crontab, the crontab is valid, you can log in as this username etc., however the crontab never fires, it always just triggers the above line in my logs Why is cron trying to look in /etc/passwd instead of going through nsswitch? How can I tell cron to get a clue? Just before finishing this post, I've realized that using the -p switch to crond allows cron to ignore the user check and just run the crontab... however I am sure that this check was there for a good reason... Any other fixes or suggestions welcome.
# 2  
Old 02-15-2009
I will make a wild guess. You are starting cron before this "central authentication" is functioning. cron can't verify the user and cron is not going to spontaneously reverify the user later.
# 3  
Old 02-16-2009
can you try to restart cron? you could also run cron in debug mode.

are you running nscd(caching daemon) by any chance? if so, try to flush the cache.
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