Re: Unable to start server - winxp

Joost Kuckartz wrote:
> Hello,
>
> After a huge amount of trying out (I'm new at running webservers, I
> had a lot of problems installing apache too) I finally was able to
> install postpresql 8.2 (latest version) on my computer. What I want
> to do in the end is have a local webserver running. I installed ms4w
> (package with php, mapserver, apache) and I had to change the
> httpd.conf port to 81 (80 is in use by I-don't-know-what, I can't see
> that)

Stop. Find out what is on port 80 and how to disable it before going
further. If you don't know what your computer is doing, how can you hope
to run a reliable system?

You probably want to read up on "netstat" and "process explorer" and
"IIS" to start with.

> Well, I installed the .msi, and I had no idea that the "account"
> settings had to be left intact. First I thought I could change it,
> but then it installed and always gave the error "user already exists"
> (while in the install was asked to create the new user...)

Hmm - does the manual not cover details about why PostgreSQL wants to
run as a separate user?

> Ok, so I left all ok, left the computer name there, and created the
> new standard username "postgres". Now I can't start the server, it
> will say I have to start it not as administrator. Well, I only have
> one useraccount here and I'm not planning on switching useraccounts
> just to run postgresql, or change my account so I don't have admin
> rights anymore.

You can start it as anyone, but you should run it as a non-administrator
account. Do you understand how user-accounts and services on Windows work?

> How do I start it? After that the problems of configuring it with
> Apache will follow, but first this.

You don't. PostgreSQL will NOT run as an administrator account. It
doesn't need to and it's a security hole if it does so. You should be
able to start the service as an administrator just fine.

> I can't compile, and I'm not planning to either. If I had a dedicated
> server I probably would run linux or unix or something which can
> handle better with webservers anyway. Can somebody help me? Thanks!

I think you're mis-reading the error message. You can start it as an
administrator, and it should run as user "postgres". The only thing I
can think is that user "postgres" somehow has some administrator rights
and that is why its complaining.

In any case, to get a more accurate answer you'll need to provide the
exact error message and what you were doing when it happened.

PS - you can hire "virtual" linux servers quite cheaply which will let
you play around with setting up all sort of packages.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd