Bug 126031 – Vixie-cron fails due a missing system account

• Product: Gentoo Linux
• Status: RESOLVED FIXED

[Description Mikael Karlsson 2006-03-13 02:06:07 UTC]

Seems like a clean install of Gentoo 2006.0 and installing vixie-cron. The installation fails due to a missing account.  The user cron is missing from the system. And the installation works if I create it manually.

[Comment 1 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2006-03-13 02:15:59 UTC]

Maybe you could include some error messages and steps to reproduce? vixie-cron inherits cron eclass which RDEPENDs on sys-process/cronbase which creates the needed user before vixie-cron gets compiled. So, sorry - not possible under normal circumstances. 

[Comment 2 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) 2006-03-19 11:22:29 UTC]

I just reproduced this on a fresh ppc 2006.0 stage3 install with a fresh (as of 16:00 UTC) rsync'd tree.

>>> Install vixie-cron-4.1-r8 into /var/tmp/portage/vixie-cron-4.1-r8/image/ category sys-process
install: invalid group `cron'
touch: cannot touch `/var/tmp/portage/vixie-cron-4.1-r8/image///var/spool/cron/crontabs/.keep': No such file or directory

!!! ERROR: sys-process/vixie-cron-4.1-r8 failed.
!!! Function keepdir, Line 332, Exitcode 1
!!! Failed to create .keep in /var/tmp/portage/vixie-cron-4.1-r8/image///var/spool/cron/crontabs
!!! If you need support, post the topmost build error, NOT this status message.

(chroot) livecd linux # emerge -pv cronbase

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] sys-process/cronbase-0.3.2  0 kB 

Total size of downloads: 0 kB
(chroot) livecd linux # grep cron /etc/passwd
(chroot) livecd linux # 

After re-emerging cronbase, I have the 'cron' user and vixie-cron installs without a problem.

[Comment 3 Andrew Gaffney (RETIRED) 2006-03-19 11:30:13 UTC]

It looks like the stage I used (stage3-g4-2006.0) is broken. sys-process/cronbase is installed but there is no 'cron' user in /etc/passwd.

[Comment 4 Joe Jezak (RETIRED) 2006-09-05 15:09:30 UTC]

Fixed in 2006.1.