This question came as a result of the error: –
/usr/sbin/cron[pid]: (username) ORPHAN (no passwd entry)
…in the /var/log/messages file.
This arrived after an ldap user (username) created a crontab entry with crontab -e, but the entry did not run.
This is due to the cron daemon not being able to look up the password of the username in the /etc/passwd file (because the user is a LDAP user, not a local user).
The fix for this is to install and start the Name Caching Daemon (nscd). When the ldap user then logs in, nscd caching the passwd details and crontab is able to look this up when the crontab entry runs.
Note : It has been advised by various people (including Novell), that nscd *is not* installed in zLinux environments because of performance concerns. The alternative here is to run your crontab job as a suitable local user or use a scheduling package like TWS.
