Re: pgsql user change to postgres

Joe <dev(at)freedomcircle(dot)net> writes:
> I'm now migrating to FreeBSD and was surprised to find that the port
> used 'pgsql' as the user. The maintainer said that was done to ensure
> backward compatibility because that *was* the original name.

It's always been "postgres", at least as far as the standard name of the
initial database superuser goes. I see no recommendation of "pgsql" in
Postgres 4.2 for instance:

$ gzcat postgres-v4r2.tar.gz | grep -i pgsql | wc
0 0 0
$

Various ports have used "pgsql" in their preferred installation paths,
eg the Linux RPMs use /var/lib/pgsql/data as the preferred $PGDATA,
but this should generally be transparent to users of the database.
Changing the superuser name isn't transparent, though.

FreeBSD is out in left field here. However, I don't see why you need to
alter the build to change this. Just create a new user postgres and run
the initdb step as that user. initdb uses the OS user name it's run as
to determine the initial superuser name.

regards, tom lane