Re: BUG #11090: Unclear error message in pg_upgrade

On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 1:44 PM, David G Johnston <
david(dot)g(dot)johnston(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:

> John R Pierce wrote
> > On 7/29/2014 11:58 AM, Alvaro Herrera wrote:
> >>
>
> > brorfred@
>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >>> >pg_upgrade requires that the old and new database has the same install
> >>> >superuser (superuser that ran initdb). If this requirement isn't
> >>> fulfilled,
> >>> >you'll get the following error:
> >>> >
> >>> >"Old and new cluster install users have different values for
> >>> >pg_authid.oid.\n"
> >> To me, the bug is that we required both superusers to be named the same
> >> in the first place.
> >
> > so, if its enhanced with a -U newsuperuser flag, any objects owned by
> > 'postgres' on the original cluster are now owned by 'newsuperuser' on
> > the new cluster?
>
> Please no. I'm not a pg_upgrade user but this just seems like asking for
> trouble. There has been one complaint and while I can see why the user
> tried this it is not a very convincing use case. Rewording the error is
> sufficient.
>

I have one database with a retrospectively poor choice of initdb -U. I
certainly wish there was a way, short of dump and restore, to change the
name of that user. Although I don't think pg_upgrade would be the ideal
way to do that.

Cheers,

Jeff