SUMMARY: sysadm user - cron entries

From: Steve Dickson (sdickson@aries.for.gov.bc.ca)
Date: Sat Jun 10 1995 - 07:40:01 CDT


        Dear Sun-Managers,

        As usual, a speedy response from a number of people out there.

        Problem:
        
        Does anyone know the who/what/where/etc pertaining to the following
        message displayed at boot-up under Solaris 2.3:

        ! no such user as sysadm - cron entries not created Thur Jun 8 ...

        This is on a newly configured SPARC 5, Solaris 2.3 just installed,
        recommended patch cluster as of May 1995, bare-bones set-up at the
        moment, no ethernet, SunLink TRI/S 3.0.2

        We've configured several SPARC stations, including a couple of SPARC
        5's, identically to this one; we've never come across this message
        before. What is the sysadm user needed for? I've checked the crontab
        entries and can't find anything referring to the sysadm account.

        Solution:
        
        This is a consequence of patch 101572-03. The solution is actually
        contained in the README file for that patch. A brief precis is that
        a crontab entry for the sysadm account is created in
        /var/spool/cron/crontabs/sysadm. The error/warning message is
        generated when the system determines that there is no sysadm account
        to go with the crontab entry.

        The fix is to create a temporary entry for the sysadm account in
        /etc/passwd, run crontab -r sysadm and then remove the sysadm entry
        from the /etc/passwd file. Since the sysadm crontab entry is non-
        critical (dealing with some obsolescent backup utilities), there is
        no problem with just removing the cron entry.

        Gee, I guess from now on I should read the README files for all the
        patches I install, including the recommended clusters :)

        Thanks to the following for their speedy responses:
        Rashad Al-Yawir <Rashad.Al-Yawir@ii.uni.wroc.pl>
        lorenzd@gcm.com (Daniel Lorenzini)
        rangern@CIRANO.UMontreal.CA (Normand Ranger)
        james mularadelis <jamesm@matrix.newpaltz.edu>
        mshon@sunrock.East.Sun.COM (Michael J. Shon {*Prof Services} Sun
        boudreg@mars.IRCM.UMontreal.CA (SI-Gaetan Boudreau)
        lilga@srv630.Ando.Com (Dave Lilga)
        Manfred Liebchen <liebchen@rrz.Uni-Koeln.DE>

        



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