Re: [HTCondor-users] startd doesn't start

[Greg Thain <gthain@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/17/2017 04:28 AM, Alessandra Forti wrote:

In the StartLog files I have this error

03/17/17 08:20:35 ERROR: Attempt to initialize user_priv with root privileges rejected
03/17/17 08:20:35 ERROR "Programmer Error: attempted switch to user privilege, but user ids are not initialized" at line 1500 in file

When started as root, the startd spends most of it's runtime as a non-root user, for security reasons.  In those places where it needs root, it will setuid back to root temporarily, but then switch back to a non-root uid.

This error says that the startd is trying to switch effective user id to some non-root user, but the numeric id (or gid) of that non-root user is zero, which is clearly an error, and rather than run with improperly elevated privileges, the startd aborts.

So, it would be useful to know which user it is trying to run as, which a bit more of the log above this, especially running the startd with D_FULLDEBUG will show.  Also, the values of the config setting CONDOR_IDS may be involved.  This error can be caused if you are getting your passwd file entries from NIS or LDAP, and somehow the startd didn't load that library or configuration.

-greg