Re: Misleading/inaccurate error message from pg_basebackup

> On 22 Jan 2024, at 17:47, c(at)osss(dot)net wrote:

> pg_basebackup can throw an error which is inaccurate and misleading:

> $ pg_basebackup --version
> Error: /var/lib/postgresql/14/main is not accessible; please fix the directory permissions (/var/lib/postgresql/14/ should be world readable)
>
> In fact it does not need to be world readable at all - the subdirectory just needs to be created:

> This check is being done in cases where it's unnecessary, as it shouldn't matter at all when running a simple --version or --help, anyways.

There is no such check before --version or --help, and no such check at all in
pg_basebackup. Whatever is raising that error probably isn't postgres or
pg_basebackup. When pg_basebackup logs an error it looks like this:

pg_basebackup: error: /var/lib/postgresql/14/main is not accessible

Something else is doing this on your system.

--
Daniel Gustafsson