Re: new install starting backend

On Tue, Aug 17, 2004 at 04:23:02PM -0700, David Bear wrote:

> I installed postgres from the freebsd ports collection.
>
> Then, after doing the initdb, I tried to run the backend as the
> postgres user, ie while su'ed as pgsql. I was prompt for a password.
> Since I had not change and pg_hba.conf settings, nor set a password
> during the initdb phase, I was surprised by this.
>
> When I su'ed back to root, I was able to run the startup script the
> package had put in /usr/local/etc/rc.d. But, this contradicts:
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.4/static/postmaster-start.html
>
> Different systems have different conventions for starting up daemons
> at boot time. Many systems have a file /etc/rc.local or
> /etc/rc.d/rc.local. Others use rc.d directories. Whatever you do, the
> server must be run by the PostgreSQL user account and not by root or
> any other user. Therefore you probably should form your commands
> using su -c '...' postgres. For example:
>
> I did check ps ax and found
>
> pgsql 39212 0.0 0.4 6292 4376 ?? I 4:15PM 0:00.00
> postmaster: stats
> pgsql 39210 0.0 0.4 7280 4384 ?? I 4:15PM 0:00.00
> postmaster: stats
> pgsql 39206 0.0 0.4 15532 4460 ?? Is 4:15PM 0:00.02
> /usr/local/bin/pos
>
> which indicates the postmaster is running as the postgresql superuser.
> So far, all seems okay, but I wanted to check to make sure this looked
> okay. any comments?

The startup script in the ports collection does the su for you.
If you try to run it as the postgres user, it will still attempt an su,
which since you aren't root will require the unix password for the
postgres account to execute. Run as root, su just works without needing
a password. So you're seeing the expected behaviour.

--Joe
--
Joe Sunday <sunday(at)csh(dot)rit(dot)edu> http://www.csh.rit.edu/~sunday/
Computer Science House, Rochester Inst. Of Technology