Re: authentication/privileges

"Sebastian P. Luque" <spluque(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> With peer authentication, one can only login as postgres from a local
> connection. I'm not sure what password the postgres user was set up in
> the OS, however, I assigned one to it (the same as for the PostgreSQL
> user). I've read somewhere that the postgres OS user should be left
> locked without password, although it's not clear what was meant by
> "locked".

It's fairly common for distro-supplied packages to create a postgres
OS user but not assign it any password. In that state, the only way to
become postgres is to "su" to it from root, or perhaps from a sudoer
account with root-equivalent privileges. While that might be okay
for machines with just one person administering everything, I can't
say that I think it's recommendable practice in general: you don't
want to have to give somebody root to let them admin the database.
Better to give the postgres user a password.

regards, tom lane

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