Cannot set up cron as a service on corporate PC

[Brian Inglis]

On 2023-12-09 14:55, Adam Dinwoodie via Cygwin wrote:
> I've been trying to set up Cygwin cron to work as a service on my work
> PC.  I'm able to get it working just fine on a Windows system where I'm
> using a personal Microsoft account, but when I attempt the same process
> using on a Windows system using my work account, I get the following
> error:
>      cygrunsrv: Error starting a service: StartService:  Win32 error 1068:
>      The dependency service or group failed to start.
> I also note that in the failing scenario, I see the following log appear
> at this time in Windows Event Viewer:
>> This computer is configured as a member of a workgroup, not as a
>> member of a domain. The Netlogon service does not need to run in this
>> configuration.
> I've reproduced this behaviour in virtual machines using fresh
> installations of Windows, and where the only actions taken were to
> bootstrap, log in, install Cygwin including cygrunsrv and cron, then
> attempt to set up cron as a service.  I've attached copies of the MinTTY
> output and the cronbug.txt files (which appear to include the normal
> cygcheck -srv output, so I've not added those separately.  I've also
> attached the full Event Viewer log
> My guess is that something about how Windows manages user accounts has
> changed over the years, and cygrunsrv hasn't been updated to cope, but
> that's a very wild guess.  Searching the archives hasn't got me very
> far; mostly I've found references to cyglsa, which I get the impression
> is thoroughly deprecated, and based on
> https://www.cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/ntsec.html#ntsec-nopasswd3 I don't
> think it's appropriate anyway due to the way the password is stored.
> For now I'm continuing to use a snippet in my .bashrc to start cron when
> I first start Bash, but that's not the nicest of workarounds.  Does
> anyone have suggestions for anything better?

Never any issues here with cron, other than no mail, but I run mainly run 
scripts that log to /var/log/, and syslog rules that chmod a+r.
I installed cyglsa many years ago, but don't think that's used any more, and I 
also used passwd -R, so that should still be around.
I have also customized my daemon services so auto-start is delayed, notify on 
pre-shutdown, and depend on others: cron -> syslog-ng -> cygserver -> SamSS 
Security Accounts Manager, as I an not in a domain.

Given the error, I suggest checking the system config, as it either needs to be 
a domain member, with DC/AD access, or you need your work user created locally.
Also check the deps with `sc qc cron` and follow the chain to see where netlogon 
gets involved.

-- 
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis              Calgary, Alberta, Canada

La perfection est atteinte                   Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter  not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retirer     but when there is no more to cut
                                 -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry