Strange trouble with ntpd account

[BERTRAND Joël]

	Hello,

	Yesterday, I have rebooted my diskless workstation running FreeBSD
12.0-RELEASE-p10. I have seen that ntpd refuses to start :

root at pythagore:/etc # /etc/rc.d/ntpd start
Starting ntpd.
su: unknown login: ntpd
/etc/rc.d/ntpd: WARNING: failed to start ntpd
root at pythagore:/etc #

	indeed :

root at pythagore:/var/db/ntp # ls -al
total 16
drwxr-xr-x   2 123   ntpd    512 Mar 20  2019 .
drwxr-xr-x  22 root  wheel  1024 Oct 22 19:01 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root  wheel     8 Mar 20  2019 ntpd.drift
-rw-r--r--   1 root  ntpd      4 Mar 20  2019 ntpd.pid

	Please note user 123 instead of user ntpd.
I have tried to create a new file and change owner to ntpd without success :

root at pythagore:/var/db/ntp # touch toto
root at pythagore:/var/db/ntp # chown ntpd toto
chown: ntpd: illegal user name

	I don't understand why ntpd user is illegal as this account exists in
/etc/master.passwd :
# $FreeBSD: releng/12.0/etc/master.passwd 337882 2018-08-15 23:18:34Z brd $
#
root:$6$mNlwOa.XAsUQF0bo$RCxDWSK0Hc2HGWkT5f46R6zjRhfgKhiA8IGKbM9KkILUACC0fLnKf3jABGiHSxRLSJH/.SXXsjaZJi30.CGR21:0:0::0:0:Charlie
&:/root:/bin/csh
toor:*:0:0::0:0:Bourne-again Superuser:/root:
daemon:*:1:1::0:0:Owner of many system processes:/root:/usr/sbin/nologin
...
www:*:80:80::0:0:World Wide Web Owner:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
ntpd:*:123:123::0:0:NTP Daemon:/var/db/ntp:/usr/sbin/nologin
_ypldap:*:160:160::0:0:YP LDAP unprivileged
user:/var/empty:/usr/sbin/nologin
cups:*:193:193::0:0:Cups Owner:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
...
webcamd:*:145:145::0:0:Webcamd user:/var/empty:/usr/sbin/nologin
colord:*:970:970::0:0:colord color management
daemon:/nonexistent:/usr/sbin/nologin
+:::::::::
polkit:*LOCKED**:1013:1001::0:0:User &:/var/polkit:/usr/sbin/nologin

	Of course, I have checked that, for example, I can create a new file
and change owner to cups without error.

	My nsswitch.conf is :
group: compat
group_compat: nis
hosts: files dns
netgroup: compat
networks: files
passwd: compat
passwd_compat: nis
shells: files
services: compat
services_compat: nis
protocols: files
rpc: files

and, of course, nis run as expected.

	Why is ntpd account disabled ?

	Best regards,

	JB