Arch Linux

dboat

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 33

[Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

I have found lot of old posts about failed shadow.service with causes related to the new filesystem or merge of pacnew files.  My vm was built last month and the following messages shows that it seems not to be my case.

Following output is captured after a reboot.  Any hints to proceed?

Thanks in advance for your help.

# systemctl status shadow
● shadow.service - Verify integrity of password and group files
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/shadow.service; static; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Thu 2015-09-10 15:44:41 HKT; 3s ago
  Process: 425 ExecStart=/usr/bin/grpck -r (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 422 ExecStart=/usr/bin/pwck -r (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 425 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

Sep 10 15:44:41 archdock systemd[1]: Starting Verify integrity of password and group files...
Sep 10 15:44:41 archdock systemd[1]: Started Verify integrity of password and group files.

# journalctl -xn
-- Logs begin at Mon 2015-09-07 15:41:41 HKT, end at Thu 2015-09-10 15:44:41 HKT. --
Sep 10 15:44:15 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Sep 10 15:44:18 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Sep 10 15:44:21 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Sep 10 15:44:25 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Sep 10 15:44:25 archdock su[414]: (to root) dboat on pts/0
Sep 10 15:44:25 archdock su[414]: pam_unix(su:session): session opened for user root by dboat(uid=1000)
Sep 10 15:44:28 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Sep 10 15:44:31 archdock kernel: cfg80211: Exceeded CRDA call max attempts. Not calling CRDA
Sep 10 15:44:41 archdock systemd[1]: Starting Verify integrity of password and group files...
-- Subject: Unit shadow.service has begun start-up
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/li … temd-devel
--
-- Unit shadow.service has begun starting up.
Sep 10 15:44:41 archdock systemd[1]: Started Verify integrity of password and group files.
-- Subject: Unit shadow.service has finished start-up
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/li … temd-devel
--
-- Unit shadow.service has finished starting up.
--
-- The start-up result is done.

Last edited by dboat (2015-09-10 17:15:11)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 21,811

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

It finishes with success and everything seems fine, why do you surmise it is failing? It is starting because that's how it does the check, if it would actually be failing the message would be different

dboat

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 33

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

In the output of systemctl status, the second line says "loaded", but then the third line says "inactive" & "dead".  So, I think shadow.service is not running.
So, there is no explicit statement telling that shadow.servive is running?

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

It's not running because it has finished its job - to run pwck and grpck
There's nothing more for the process to do, so it terminates - hence the "inactive (dead)" state.

dboat

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 33

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

Thanks V1del & ukhippo for your explanations.

I thought shadow.service is like dhcpcd@interface.service kind of service that should be always active.
May I ask
1.  any other service that is like shadow?
2.  what topic/wiki should I read to learn more about this?
3.  anything else besides boot will trigger shadow.service to run?

snakeroot

Member

Registered: 2012-10-06

Posts: 164

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

1. Any service with Type=oneshot and without RemainAfterExit=yes

2. Example 2 in man systemd.service in particular and man systemd.service in general

3. I'm not certain it is being triggered by boot. The default configuration in the Arch shadow package is to have it run daily on a timer. Since the timer set Persistent=yes, the program runs on boot if it would have otherwise run while the system is shut down. man systemd.timer has more detail.

dboat

Member

Registered: 2010-08-26

Posts: 33

Re: [Solved] shadow.service still failed while both grpck & pwck success

Thanks snakeroot for your detail information.

Point 3 also explains my unasked query that why the first error message does not appear on every boot.