title: Getting 'sudo: unknown user: hadoop' and 'sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin error' on Google Cloud Platform while running hadoop cluster
body: <p>I am trying to deploy the sample Hadoop app provided by Google at <a href="https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/solutions-google-compute-engine-cluster-for-hadoop" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/GoogleCloudPlatform/solutions-google-compute-engine-cluster-for-hadoop</a> on Google Cloud Platform.</p>
  
  <p>I followed all the setup instructions given there step-by-step. I was able to setup the environment and start the cluster successfully. But I am not able to run the MapReduce part.
  I am executing this command on my terminal:</p>
  
  <pre><code>./compute_cluster_for_hadoop.py mapreduce &lt;project ID&gt; &lt;bucket name&gt; [--prefix &lt;prefix&gt;]
  --input gs://&lt;input directory on Google Cloud Storage&gt;  \
  --output gs://&lt;output directory on Google Cloud Storage&gt;  \
  --mapper sample/shortest-to-longest-mapper.pl  \
  --reducer sample/shortest-to-longest-reducer.pl  \
  --mapper-count 5  \
  --reducer-count 1
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And I am getting the following error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>sudo: unknown user: hadoop
  sudo: unable to initialize policy plugin
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./compute_cluster_for_hadoop.py", line 230, in &lt;module&gt;
  main()
  File "./compute_cluster_for_hadoop.py", line 226, in main
  ComputeClusterForHadoop().ParseArgumentsAndExecute(sys.argv[1:])
  File "./compute_cluster_for_hadoop.py", line 222, in ParseArgumentsAndExecute
  params.handler(params)
  File "./compute_cluster_for_hadoop.py", line 51, in MapReduce
  gce_cluster.GceCluster(flags).StartMapReduce()
  File "/home/ubuntu-gnome/Hadoop-sample-app/solutions-google-compute-engine-cluster-for-hadoop-master/gce_cluster.py", line 545, in StartMapReduce
  input_dir, output_dir)
  File "/home/ubuntu-gnome/Hadoop-sample-app/solutions-google-compute-engine-cluster-for-hadoop-master/gce_cluster.py", line 462, in _StartScriptAtMaster
  raise RemoteExecutionError('Remote execution error')
  gce_cluster.RemoteExecutionError: Remote execution error
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Since I have followed all the steps given there as-it-is, I am not able to understand why this issue is arising? </p>
  
  <p>Is the 'hadoop' user actually not created in the previous scripts executed, or there is a problem with user permissions? Or the problem is somewhere else?</p>
  
  <p>Please help me with this error..!!  I am stuck here and can't proceed further.</p>