What the heck is THIS in my Sharing prefs???

[Lifeisabeach]

I just found this anomalous entry in my File Sharing prefs... a user named com.apple.calendarserver. I've never seen it before and must have appeared with the install of El Capitan. If I try to disable it, it prompts for the password for "that" user and it doesn't accept any of the passwords for my user accounts. Anyone seen this? I tried searching, but no hits.

 

[vansmith]

Hmmm, I'm curious to know if this is an actual user or just a glitch. If you execute the following at a Terminal prompt, do you see that user?

dscl . list /Users

Ignore all the users that start with an underscore (those are system users).

 

[Slydude]

I don't have that in may File Sharing setup LB. Sharing is set up over AFP and SMB.

 

[dtravis7]

Nothing like that here on my end on 2 iMacs, one with release of 10.11 and other with Beta 10.11.1.

Just my accounts.

Very strange for sure.

 

[vansmith]

I just thought of something - you don't happen to be running a Mac server are you?

 

[dtravis7]

I just thought of something - you don't happen to be running a Mac server are you?

Interesting. That would explain why others so far are not having this issue.

I did some searching and I have a feeling even more so now that Van is right.

http://krypted.com/mac-os-x-server/configure-the-calendar-service-in-mavericks-server/

This is Mavericks server but still, same Calendar Server.

 

[Slydude]

Good catch Van. I didn't think of that and should have.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Hmmm, I'm curious to know if this is an actual user or just a glitch. If you execute the following at a Terminal prompt, do you see that user?

dscl . list /Users

Ignore all the users that start with an underscore (those are system users).

Yep. Along with daemon and nobody, both of which I presume are expected.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I just thought of something - you don't happen to be running a Mac server are you?

I tried it a few months ago because I needed to have a VNC server with... grrr... I forget the term (EDIT: adaptive firewall!), but I wanted to block brute-force attacks by having a temporary lock on logins after x failed attempts. Long story short... I wound up finding VNC Server much easier and uninstalled OS X Server. But that was a few months ago and I know this wasn't in that Prefs section before El Capitan.

 

[vansmith]

Hmm, something at some point created that user then. As to what that is, I have no idea. Did you install a calendar server at some point (OS X server perhaps)? Some apps create users (for example, I'm 99% sure that the Apache web server runs under it's own user) and I wonder if something similar happened here.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Hmm, something at some point created that user then. As to what that is, I have no idea. Did you install a calendar server at some point (OS X server perhaps)? Some apps create users (for example, I'm 99% sure that the Apache web server runs under it's own user) and I wonder if something similar happened here.

Nope, that's not something I would have installed. I'm gonna go through the motions with OS X Server and reinstall that to see if I can clear it up. Odd though that there's no password I can use to disable service for it. Hmmmm....

 

[vansmith]

Assuming that you're comfortable doing so, you can always get rid of that user from the CLI. See here for some info on using dscl to do that.

Maybe make a backup before doing that? (I don't know if it's crucial so I only recommend this in case you find our later that this particular user account was necessary for something).

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Assuming that you're comfortable doing so, you can always get rid of that user from the CLI. See here for some info on using dscl to do that.

Maybe make a backup before doing that? (I don't know if it's crucial so I only recommend this in case you find our later that this particular user account was necessary for something).

It definitely wasn't OS X Server. The Calendar server wasn't enabled, and even toggling it on/off didn't fix it. I'm totally baffled over this. I don't have any sharing options enabled in Calendar itself, nor does my wife. I think I'll go ahead and kill it from the CLI. I just can't see a reason for it to be there, and the fact that I don't even know the password for that "user" is disturbing, though I'm sure it's just some bug from upgrading to El Capitan. I didn't do a clean install, which I have done the past couple releases. Thanks.

 

[vansmith]

No worries, happy to help. Let us know if you ever happen to figure out what the cause was.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I'm a little hesitant to remove the user since it supposedly is a normal one, though not one you can log in as. I decided to try running Onyx's tools for laughs (ran it after install), but no luck. Just found these entries in the logs... it DEFINITELY is a problem created by the upgrade to El Capitan.

Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]:   + Migrating com.apple.calendarserver UserOct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]: UID Translation: Did not find existing user record on target system with name "com.apple.calendarserver"
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]: Adding user com.apple.calendarserver:250:20 (admin:0) from source system as com.apple.calendarserver:250:20
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac opendirectoryd[123]: 460.221 - ODQueryCreateWithNode request, NodeID: 6D910A5E-C7A6-49E6-85A3-9CBFE32B414A, RecordType(s): dsRecTypeStandard:Users, Attribute: dsAttrTypeStandard:RecordName, MatchType: EqualTo, Equality: CaseIgnore, Value(s): com.apple.calendarserver, Requested Attributes: dsAttributesStandardAll, Max Results: 1
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac opendirectoryd[123]: 460.222 - ODNodeCreateRecord request, NodeID: 6D910A5E-C7A6-49E6-85A3-9CBFE32B414A, RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Users, RecordName: com.apple.calendarserver, Attributes: dsAttrTypeStandard:NFSHomeDirectory,dsAttrTypeNative:HeimdalSRPKey,dsAttrTypeStandard:AuthenticationAuthority,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_picture,dsAttrTypeNative:IsHidden,dsAttrTypeNative:accountPolicyData,dsAttrTypeStandard:UserShell,dsAttrTypeStandard:GeneratedUID,dsAttrTypeStandard:PrimaryGroupID,dsAttrTypeStandard:RecordName,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_passwd,dsAttrTypeNative:ShadowHashData,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_UserCertificate,dsAttrTypeStandard:RealName,dsAttrTypeNative:KerberosKeys,dsAttrTypeStandard:UniqueID,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_jpegphoto,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_hint,dsAttrTypeNative:_writers_realname
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac opendirectoryd[123]: 460.224 - ODRecordSetValue request, NodeID: 10CBFB55-775E-42DC-9FAC-7C6134065F7C, RecordType: dsRecTypeStandard:Users, Record: com.apple.calendarserver, MetaRecordName: (null), Attribute: dsAttrTypeStandard:Password
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac opendirectoryd[123]: 460.225, Node: /Local/Default, Module: PlistFile - flushing dirty record '/Volumes/Macintosh SSD/private/var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/com.apple.calendarserver' from line 6185
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]:  *??* Could not find password file for user com.apple.calendarserver of type ;ShadowHash;HASHLIST:<SMB-NT,CRAM-MD5,RECOVERABLE,SALTED-SHA512-PBKDF2>
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]:  *!!* No Shadow Hash Password was found for com.apple.calendarserver. For a pre-10.7 source system, this may prevent login.
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac OSInstaller[460]: User com.apple.calendarserver was not in the "staff" group on the source system. Attempting to add to group.
Oct 12 09:18:32 iMac opendirectoryd[123]: 460.228 - ODQueryCreateWithNode request, NodeID: 6D910A5E-C7A6-49E6-85A3-9CBFE32B414A, RecordType(s): dsRecTypeStandard:Users, Attribute: dsAttrTypeStandard:RecordName, MatchType: EqualTo, Equality: CaseIgnore, Value(s): com.apple.calendarserver, Requested Attributes: dsAttributesStandardAll, Max Results: 1

I think this is fixable with a little tweaking using TinkerTool System, or at least I think it used to be. I can't find the module I was thinking of... maybe that module isn't compatible with El Capitan. This "user" shouldn't be part of the "staff" group, or so I would think. My MBA doesn't have this issue, so I can cross-check with that as needed once I figure out the tools. I may have no choice but to do a clean reinstall. *bangs head on desk*

 

[vansmith]

I think being part of the staff group is normal - my regular admin account is.

I see, from that log, that a password file can't be found for the user which might explain why no password seemingly exists (did you try no password?).

I'm going to guess at this point that the user was created as part of an OS X server install and then not removed when you uninstalled it. While trying to migrate the user during upgrade, things probably went haywire.

While I know that this isn't directly relevant at this point anymore, that user would indeed be part of Apple's Calendar and Contacts Server package (to quote them, "By default, Calendar Server assumes there is a user named com.apple.calendarserver on the system and it uses that account to authenticate requests between the calendar server processes and the mail gateway process"). I'm not saying this is the issue here but rather, I'll leave this here for the sake of learning.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I think being part of the staff group is normal - my regular admin account is.

I see, from that log, that a password file can't be found for the user which might explain why no password seemingly exists (did you try no password?).

Yep... tried it right after I saw that line. Wouldn't take it.

I'm going to guess at this point that the user was created as part of an OS X server install and then not removed when you uninstalled it. While trying to migrate the user during upgrade, things probably went haywire.

[While I know that this isn't directly relevant at this point anymore, that user would indeed be part of Apple's Calendar and Contacts Server package (to quote them, "By default, Calendar Server assumes there is a user named com.apple.calendarserver on the system and it uses that account to authenticate requests between the calendar server processes and the mail gateway process"). I'm not saying this is the issue here but rather, I'll leave this here for the sake of learning.

My best guesses here as well. I'm just going to leave it be for now. No wait... just ran the dscl command on my MBA and that user isn't on there (never put OS X Server on that). As screw it... I'm gonna whack it.

EDIT: Aaaaaand it's outta here. Thanks for the leads to the commands needed.

 

[vansmith]

I'm sure you're fine and if not, we can tackle any weird issues that arise (which I don't expect given that this isn't a standard account).