Re: what happend to my database

Yes, this type of presumptuous behavior to wipe out a production database
based on a few checks is too risky...

Behavior one:
First out-of-box time, pg_ctl does not find any database files, it tells the
user that "sorry I did not find any database to start....see initdb....
Result: we have a semi-unhappy user/admin that says... what is initdb

Behavior two:
In order to enhance the out-of-box experience, we have wiped out a
production environment, leading to many unhappy staff and customers....

PG developers...I am not impressed at all...

Medi

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 7:51 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Steve Holdoway <steve(dot)holdoway(at)firetrust(dot)com> writes:
> > "Medi Montaseri" <montaseri(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> >> I think the following happend...
> >> Since my PGDATA was on an iSCSI device, by the time
> /etc/rc3.d/S64postgresql
> >> was executed, the device below it was not available.....question...why
> the
> >> error says "permission denied" vs "file not found". In the meantime,
> pg_ctl
> >> kept trying and finally concluded that the data directory is blank, and
> >> hence this must be a out-of-box case and he is good to initdb the PGDATA
> and
> >> as it called initdb to do the job... the iSCSI volume below it came
> online
> >> and by then the bomb had already been dropped.
> >>
> >> Now I need to find some facts to support this...
> > When you mount a partition on linux, it does this by overlaying it's root
> directory with the existing one on the parent volume. Ownerships and
> permissions are also replaced. I expect that the /qmsvol directory will be
> owned by root, with fairly restrictive access rights. This will not be the
> case the root ( . ) directory on the external device, which will be
> postgres-friendly.
> >> Where else can I look for forensics
> > I don't think you need any more! To fix this, I'd do 2 things. First,
> start postgres much later in the boot sequence:
> > cd /etc/rc3.d ; mv S64postgresql S99postgresql
> > ( and the same in rc5.d if you're using a gui at all ).
>
> The other thing to do is remove the auto-initdb behavior in your startup
> script. We've done that in recent releases because of prior reports of
> this type of problem. The OP's script is evidently still old-school,
> though.
>
> regards, tom lane
>
> --
> Sent via pgsql-admin mailing list (pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org)
> To make changes to your subscription:
> http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-admin
>