While reviewing the cron logs on one of my Solaris hosts, I noticed a number of entries similar to the following:
CMD: /opt/software/bin/arrecord -backup
> arr 20359 c Thu Sep 3 23:45:00 2009
! bad user (arr) Thu Sep 3 23:45:00 2009
< arr 20359 c Thu Sep 3 23:45:00 2009 rc=1
These errors are typically generated when the account the job run as doesn’t exist, or when the user’s shadow entry is locked (locked accounts have a LK in the /etc/shadow password field). In this specific case a password or NP entry (the account doesn’t have a password, and logins are denied) wasn’t assigned to the arr user, so the account was still listed in the locked state. Setting a strong password fixed the issue, and everything is working swimmingly!