Omi.keytab Errors Suddenly Start on Azure Server

At 10:17pm last night, an Azure web server (Bitnami WordPress stack) started generating one error per minute, each one sending an identical email, 600+ emails by morning.

Email Subject
Cron root@HOSTNAME [ ( ! -f /etc/opt/omi/creds/omi.keytab ) -o ( /etc/krb5.keytab -nt /etc/opt/omi/creds/omi.keytab ) ] && /opt/omi/bin/support/ktstrip /etc/krb5.keytab

Email Body
src kt = /etc/krb5.keytab
File /etc/krb5.keytab does not exist
/opt/omi/bin/support/ktstrip: 38: exit: Illegal number: –1

Cause

The root user’s crontab file (/var/spool/cron/crontabs/root) was changed last night at 10:16:35pm. The following line was added:

* * * * * [ \( ! -f /etc/opt/omi/creds/omi.keytab \) -o \( /etc/krb5.keytab -nt /etc/opt/omi/creds/omi.keytab \) ] && /opt/omi/bin/support/ktstrip /etc/krb5.keytab /etc/opt/omi/creds/omi.keytab

Workaround

Thanks to onedotover’s comment in Omi issue 425 on Github, I learned that I could run the following command to remove the new line from the crontab file:

sudo /opt/omi/bin/support/config_keytab_update.sh --unconfigure

I suggest following that issue for the latest updates.

Solution?

I don’t know why the crontab was changed or by whom. Was this pushed from Azure? What is Omi anyway and why is it on this server?

Update January 26, 2018

According to comments on the Github issue cited above, a patch was pushed two days ago that unwittingly included this bug. They are considering pushing a hotfix ahead of the next full version, but the workaround in the meantime is to run the command shown above.