systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service failed after upgrade from SLES 11 SP4 to SLES 15

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP2
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP1
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP4

Situation

This situation only does occur when using an additional database (LDAP as example) inside nsswitch for user/group.

During system start the systemd-tmpfiles-setup.service and/or services that do depend on this service do fail. If a service has failed can be reviewed with command :

systemctl list-units --failed

Resolution

Please execute the following command to add the missing system users/groups to the system :

/usr/bin/systemd-sysusers /usr/lib/sysusers.d/systemd.conf

Additional it is advised to update the configuration files below /usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/*.conf
Some files have references for directory /var/run (old) but should have just /run (new),
some have duplicate entries. Without the additional changes warning messages that advice to do this changes might be seen in journal, when the systemd-tmpfiles-setup service does start.

Cause

The users/groups could not be added because the post update script (/usr/bin/systemd-sysusers from systemd package) did fail because the nss database was not accessible during upgrade. This happens for example if you use LDAP in nsswitch.conf and the LDAP database however runs on the local system.

Disclaimer

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