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After a site administrator &quot;modified&quot; the /etc/group file on Solaris 5.8 server, the sybase user and other &quot;special&quot; application users no longer get their application environment.<br />
When attempting to switch user (su -) to these users, the following message is displayed;<br />
<br />
Warning: USER environment variable could not be set.<br />
/usr/bin/sh: /etc/TIMEZONE: not found<br />
/usr/bin/whoami: Command not found<br />
Cannot find termcap<br />
Cannot find termcap<br />
groups: No passwd entry<br />
<br />
I have asked the site admin to restore the passwd, group and shadow for a previous date. <br />
The error is now as follows:<br />
<br />
Warning: USER environment variable could not be set.<br />
<br />
This is a production site, and I dont want to rebuild them, but my time is growing short.<br />
The sybase user environment is required in order to run the database engine.<br />
The other background app users are required to do applicatioin based printing and database interface to other server/databses.
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After a site administrator "modified" the /etc/group file on Solaris 5.8 server, the sybase user and other "special" application users no longer get their application environment.
When attempting to switch user (su -) to these users, the following message is displayed;

Warning: USER environment variable could not be set.
/usr/bin/sh: /etc/TIMEZONE: not found
/usr/bin/whoami: Command not found
Cannot find termcap
Cannot find termcap
groups: No passwd entry

I have asked the site admin to restore the passwd, group and shadow for a previous date. 
The error is now as follows:

Warning: USER environment variable could not be set.

This is a production site, and I dont want to rebuild them, but my time is growing short.
The sybase user environment is required in order to run the database engine.
The other background app users are required to do applicatioin based printing and database interface to other server/databses.

Lost user environment

Sybase, a subsidiary of SAP, builds a client/server relational database management system. Products include Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE), Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA), Sybase Unwired Platform (SUP) for mobile applications, Afaria for enterprise mobile device management and IQ for data warehouse and big data applications.

Sybase Database

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 at Bell Labs. Today, it is a modern OS with many commercial flavors and licensees, including FreeBSD, Hewlett-Packard’s UX, IBM AIX and Apple Mac OS-X. Apart from its command-line interface, most UNIX variations support the standardized X Window System for GUIs, with the exception of the Mac OS, which uses a proprietary system.