Systemd-sysusers.service Unit fails to start on a VPS

debianlinuxsystemd

I am trying to troubleshoot my systemd-sysusers.service but I don't know where to start.
First off a bit of background this is running Debian 10 on a VPS which uses Solaris VM among other technology

The unit is failing to start due to


? systemd-sysusers.service - Create System Users                                                                                             
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-sysusers.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)                                             
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Thu 2021-08-05 08:39:41 EDT; 3s ago                                                              
     Docs: man:sysusers.d(5)                                                                                                                 
           man:systemd-sysusers.service(8)                                                                                                   
  Process: 29802 ExecStart=/bin/systemd-sysusers (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)                                                             
 Main PID: 29802 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)                                                                                             
                                                                                                                                             
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Creating group floppy with gid 25.                                                  
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Creating group audio with gid 29.                                                   
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Creating group dip with gid 30.                                                     
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Creating group video with gid 44.                                                   
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Creating group plugdev with gid 46.                                                 
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: /etc/gshadow: Group "cdrom" already exists.                                         
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd-sysusers[29802]: Failed to write files: File exists                                                  
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd[1]: systemd-sysusers.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE                     
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd[1]: systemd-sysusers.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.                                        
Aug 05 08:39:41 myvps systemd[1]: Failed to start Create System Users.

The fact is that if I check sudo vi /etc/gshadow I just get a line regarding to cdrom

cdrom:*::debianuser

But Despite that I don't really have a clue on how to continue

Best Answer

systemd-sysusers expects the /etc/passwd & /etc/shadow, and similarly /etc/group & /etc/gshadow, files to be in sync with each other. If a group is missing, then it should be missing from both of those files. So when sysusers is adding a group that "doesn't exist" but finds it already present in /etc/gshadow, it reports this as an error.

Either manually add the group with groupadd so that it exists in both files, or manually remove it from /etc/gshadow so that systemd-sysusers will be able to properly re-add it, or use grpck to automatically fix all inconsistencies across both files.

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I too had this issue. I was able to solve it by following the instructions on the Arch Linux systemd wiki page. Here is a summary of what I did :

Lets find the systemd services which fail to start

$ systemctl --failed  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
systemd-modules-load.service   loaded failed failed  Load Kernel Modules

Ok, we found a problem with systemd-modules-load service. We want to know more.

$ systemctl status systemd-modules-load  
------------------------------------------------------------------------
systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules      
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static)     
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since So 2013-08-25 11:48:13 CEST; 32s ago  
     Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8).  
           man:modules-load.d(5)
  Process: 15630 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

If the Process ID is not listed, just restart the failed service with

$ systemctl restart systemd-modules-load

Now we have the process id (PID) to investigate this error in depth. Enter the following command with the current Process ID (here: 15630):

$ journalctl _PID=15630
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Logs begin at Sa 2013-05-25 10:31:12 CEST, end at So 2013-08-25 11:51:17 CEST. --
Aug 25 11:48:13 mypc systemd-modules-load[15630]: Failed to find module 'blacklist usblp'
Aug 25 11:48:13 mypc systemd-modules-load[15630]: Failed to find module 'install usblp /bin/false'

We see that some of the kernel module configs have wrong settings. Therefore we have a look at these settings in /etc/modules-load.d/

$ ls -Al /etc/modules-load.d/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
...  
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    79  1. Dez 2012  blacklist.conf  
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     1  2. Mär 14:30 encrypt.conf  
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     3  5. Dez 2012  printing.conf  
-rw-r--r--   1 root root     6 14. Jul 11:01 realtek.conf  
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    65  2. Jun 23:01 virtualbox.conf  
...

The Failed to find module 'blacklist usblp' error message might be related to a wrong setting inside of blacklist.conf. Lets deactivate it with inserting a trailing # before each option we found via step 3:
```
/etc/modules-load.d/blacklist.conf  
----------------------------------------------------------------------
# blacklist usblp  
# install usblp /bin/false  
```

Now, try to start systemd-modules-load:

$ systemctl restart systemd-modules-load

If it was successful, this should not prompt anything. If you see any error, go back to step 3 and use the new PID for solving the errors left.

If everything is ok, you can verify that the service was started successfully with:

$ systemctl status systemd-modules-load
----------------------------------------------------------------------
systemd-modules-load.service - Load Kernel Modules
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-modules-load.service; static)
   Active: active (exited) since So 2013-08-25 12:22:31 CEST; 34s ago
     Docs: man:systemd-modules-load.service(8)
           man:modules-load.d(5)
 Process: 19005 ExecStart=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd-modules-load (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Aug 25 12:22:31 mypc systemd[1]: Started Load Kernel Modules.

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