[Freeipa-users] cron reports "ORPHAN (no passwd entry)" for the @reboot jobs

[Harald Dunkel]

Hi folks,

System: freeipa client, Debian 8 (using systemd), cron 3.0pl1-128,
sssd 1.13.4-2

Problem:
Cron fails to start a few "@reboot" jobs at boot time. cron.log
shows:

:
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 anacron[197]: Anacron 2.3 started on 2016-05-02
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 anacron[197]: Normal exit (0 jobs run)
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 cron[194]: (CRON) INFO (pidfile fd = 3)
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 cron[194]: (user1) ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 cron[194]: (user2) ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
May  2 13:36:48 fpsde8i002 cron[194]: (CRON) INFO (Running @reboot jobs)
:

AFAICT cron is started last at boot time. cron.service is

	[Unit]
	Description=Regular background program processing daemon
	Documentation=man:cron(8)

	[Service]
	EnvironmentFile=-/etc/default/cron
	ExecStart=/usr/sbin/cron -f $EXTRA_OPTS
	IgnoreSIGPIPE=false
	KillMode=process
	Type=idle

	[Install]
	WantedBy=multi-user.target

The "Type=idle" should make sure (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/systemd).

If I add a crontab entry "@reboot ( ps -ef; ls -al /home ) >/var/tmp/ls.log"
for root, then the generated file reveals that sssd has been started, but
its sssd_something services are not running. ls shows just the numerical
UIDs instead of the login IDs.

Sssd might have been started first, but apparently its not ready yet.
Shouldn't it block at boot time for some time to make sure that all
internal services are available?


Every helpful comment is highly appreciated
Harri