Re: BUG #5475: Problem during Instalation

On 6/9/10 2:33 PM, Craig Ringer wrote:
> On 09/06/10 16:29, Dave Page wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jun 9, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Craig Ringer
>> <craig(at)postnewspapers(dot)com(dot)au> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Only because the PostgreSQL system user account password is coupled to
>>> the account of the "postgres" user in the PostgreSQL database cluster
>>> (right?). I'm not at a Windows box right now so I can't test to see if
>>> altering the Pg role's password changes the system password or vice
>>> versa, but I'd be surprised if they did.
>>>
>> It won't, but the point is that we have to ask for a password anyway
>> so we don't gain anything by not asking the user for one of them.
>>
> The issue is that the user has to know if they've installed Pg before
> (and thus already have a "postgres" service account) or not. Some
> clearly don't, or have forgotten the service account password long ago.
>
>
> In general, users expect that an uninstall of an app will remove the
> app's configuration. Pg ... sort of ... does. It leaves the user account
> in place, though it created it in the first place. So the user has to
> know if Pg has been installed previously and if so what the service
> account password was. This demonstrably confuses people who try to
> uninstall and reinstall Pg to resolve issues (service account
> configuration related or other).
>
If a user has admin rights, he can anytime change the password for an
existing 'postgres' user account in case he doesn't remember the
password anymore.

That said, i believe the text/prompt that asks for password in the
installer is clear enough to avoid any confusion. Cant say people
actually read all that though.

--
Regards,
Sachin Srivastava
EnterpriseDB <http://www.enterprisedb.com>, the Enterprise Postgres
<http://www.enterprisedb.com> company.