Numerous “checking for monitored file `/etc/nsswitch.conf’: No such file or directory” filling up the log file directory

Background

What is the nscd service?

*Nscd is a daemon that provides a cache for the most common name service requests. The default configuration file, /etc/nscd. conf, determines the behavior of the cache daemon.

*Reference

On an openSUSE Tumbleweed system you might be experiencing a lot of the messages below filling up the log file. Now we all know this is a big no-no because how will you focus on the actual problem at hand?

Feb 09 08:45:46 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 checking for monitored file `/etc/nsswitch.conf': No such file or directory
Feb 09 09:12:13 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 checking for monitored file `/etc/nsswitch.conf': No such file or directory
Feb 09 09:12:28 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 checking for monitored file `/etc/nsswitch.conf': No such file or directory

Googling is a bit harder than usual, but here is the fix:

cp /usr/etc/nsswitch.conf /etc/

One you’ve done that, you’ll first see a few new messages repeat:

Feb 09 09:13:20 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 monitored file `/etc/nsswitch.conf` changed (mtime)
Feb 09 09:13:20 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 monitoring file `/etc/nsswitch.conf` (7)
Feb 09 09:13:20 k1 nscd[23144]: 23144 monitoring directory `/etc` (2)

But pretty soon you have a beautiful clean log file.

It therefor seems that at least one install of openSUSE Tumbleweed has an issue.

If you want to learn more you could read these bug reports but you might just get frustrated:

https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1184325
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1163179