Re: building from source requires postgres user account

"George Wilk" <gwilk(at)ellacoya(dot)com> writes:
> I'd like to use my own user account when building postgres from source.
> When I follow directions on Sun's page:
> http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/819-5578/6n7lcpcl5?a=view I don't have a
> problem, but running build under my own account runs into file permission
> issues after the build is done.

Well, the default place to put the executables (/usr/local) is normally
not world-writable, so you should expect to have to do "make install" as
root. If you want an entirely unprivileged installation, specify an
unprivileged install location to configure --prefix. However, such
setups are normally not useful for much beyond testing purposes; if you
intend the database to be autostarted at system boot then the
executables really ought to be root-owned for security.

You certainly don't need to do configure and make as any particular
user. The user you do "make install" as will determine the ownership
of the installed executables and other static files. The user you do
"initdb" as will own the PGDATA directory and will need to be the userid
that the postmaster is started under. These three can be different,
and none of them need to be named "postgres".

regards, tom lane