Re: help with cron/rsync error message

[steve%prd.co.uk@localhost (Steve Blinkhorn)]

Spot oon, thank you.

The upgrade fro 7.x/8.x to 9.2 is proving by far the most gruesome
I've been through (I started with 2.x IIRC).  Because I use NetBSD
as a public service delivery platform in remote data centres as well as
for software development, standard network services and general office
work, upgrade time is scary.  The Guide is not all that helpful if you
only upgrade once for every major release. much more helpful when
doing a clean installation.

Anything to do with system configuration or services - mostly
concentrated in /etc but also including, for instance, /var/cron/tabs -
needs protection in the upgrade process.  What would be ideal would be
a process that never overwrites a customised configuration file with a
fresh new default.  I have yet to upgrade the machines that provide
primary DNS, mail service, printing services and VNC connectivity
because I cannot afford to have them out of action for an extended
period, which is what happened with the three machines I have upgraded
so far.

Thanks again,

--
Steve Blinkhorn <steve%prd.co.uk@localhost>
You wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 16 Nov 2022, Steve Blinkhorn wrote:
> 
> > Results are:
> > 1.  cron: in pam_vprompt(): no conversation function
> >
> 
> I think when you upgraded your machines, you may have extracted all the sets
> except {,x}etc (and, not used sysinst to do the update?).
> 
> In 8.x, cron doesn't use PAM, so no /etc/pam.d/cron is present. The cron in
> 9.x is built with PAM support and therefore comes with a PAM config. file.
> When this new cron runs but doesn't find a /etc/pam.d/cron, it spits out
> these errors:
> 
> ```
> cron[3913]: (CRON) pam_authenticate failed (System error)
> cron: in pam_vprompt(): no conversation function
> ```
> 
> Install the cron PAM file from the 9.2 etc set; and, to forestall any more
> issues of this sort, get etc.tar.xz (and xetc.tar.xz if you've installed X)
> and merge it using etcupdate:
> 
> ```
> # etcupdate -s /tmp/etc.tar.xz -s /tmp/xetc.tar.xz
> ```
> 
> > File: /usr/lib/libpam.so.4.0
> >
> > String dump of section '.comment':
> >  [     0]  GCC: (NetBSD nb2 20150115) 4.8.4
> >
> 
> sysinst should've removed all these older versions when it upgraded the
> system, but as none of the symlinks point to it, having it around it shouldn't
> cause any problems.
> 
> -RVP
>