Initdb on Windows 2003

Hello all,

Below is an email thread regarding a possible bug in PostgreSQL on
Windows 2003. Any help or advice anyone can give on this would be much
appreciated.

All the best,
James Hughes

--- EMAIL THREAD FOLLOWS ---

James_Hughes(at)McAfee(dot)com wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
>
> We are now seeing this issue on three machines, all of which are
> running Windows 2003. After some looking at the code and putting some
> extra debug output (very little) all we have determined is that
> initdb.exe opens postgres.exe via pipes, and at some point within
> postgres.exe this error is generated.
>
> If we knock out the check for the user being not being admin and run
> initdb.exe as an administrator all works as expected. Adding the user
> to the 'Power Users' group also causes the "Access Denined" error! I
> don't believe that the access denined is anything to do with file
> access or memory (shared) access as I ran some tools to see what
> postgres.exe is trying to access.
>
> Is there an easy way on Windows to step-through the PostgreSQL code as

> it runs? Is there any other information I can provide which will help
> you with this defect?
>
> Any help getting to the root of this problem is much appericated.
>
> All the best
> James Hughes
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Momjian [mailto:pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us]
> Sent: 24 February 2006 18:54
> To: Hughes, James
> Cc: pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [BUGS] BUG #2268: initdb fails to initialize database
> cluster with error "Access is denied"
>
>
> Strange. It isn't a typical error we see, and the fact you see it on
> two machines is even stranger. My guess is that somehow the
> configuration on those two machines is the same and is causing the
> failure.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> ---
>
> James Hughes wrote:
> >
> > The following bug has been logged online:
> >
> > Bug reference: 2268
> > Logged by: James Hughes
> > Email address: james_hughes(at)mcafee(dot)com
> > PostgreSQL version: 8.1.3
> > Operating system: Windows 2003 (Server)
> > Description: initdb fails to initialize database cluster with
> error
> > "Access is denied"
> > Details:
> >
> > When we try and initialize a database cluster using initdb.exe we
> > are getting the following output.
> >
> > -- OUTPUT from dbinit.exe --
> > The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user
> "user1".
> > This user must also own the server process.
> >
> > The database cluster will be initialized with locale English_United
> > Kingdom.1252.
> >
> > creating directory c:/dataa ... ok
> > creating directory c:/dataa/global ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/pg_xlog ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/pg_xlog/archive_status ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/pg_clog ... ok creating directory c:/dataa/pg_subtrans ...
> > ok
>
> > creating directory c:/dataa/pg_twophase ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/pg_multixact/members ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/pg_multixact/offsets ... ok creating directory
> > c:/dataa/base ... ok creating directory c:/dataa/base/1 ... ok
> > creating directory c:/dataa/pg_tblspc ... ok selecting default
> > max_connections ... Access
>
> > is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > 10
> > selecting default shared_buffers ... Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > Access is denied.
> > 50
> > creating configuration files ... ok
> > creating template1 database in c:/dataa/base/1 ... ok initializing
> > pg_authid ... Access is denied.
> > child process was terminated by signal 1
> > initdb: removing data directory "c:/dataa"
> >
> > -- end: OUTPUT from dbinit.exe --
> >
> > user1 is a user without administrative rights. I have checked all
> > the directories and the user has permissons to write to the data
> > directory, and read other files it requires.
> >
> > I also tried the Windows installer (MSI) from pgFoundry. This too is

> > having the same problem.
> >
> > We have two machines which this problem occurs on, one of which
> > originally the initialization would work on. I have checked all the
> > user rights asssignments, and even given the postgres user (user1 in

> > the above output from dbinit.exe) all user rights.
> >
> > ---------------------------(end of
> > broadcast)---------------------------
> > TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> >
>
> --
> Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us
> SRA OSS, Inc. http://www.sraoss.com
>
> + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +
>

--
Bruce Momjian http://candle.pha.pa.us
SRA OSS, Inc. http://www.sraoss.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

James Hughes