Re: BUG #6735: PANIC: 42501: could not open control file "global/pg_control": Permission denied

On 14 July 2012 05:56, Craig Ringer <ringerc(at)ringerc(dot)id(dot)au> wrote:
> On 07/14/2012 12:18 AM, Petros Tsialiamanis wrote:
>>
>> Thank you very much for your reply.
>
> Thanks for coming back and re-testing with a modern PostgreSQL.
>
> PostgreSQL 9.1 isn't compatible with databases from 8.3, so you can't
> actually run Pg 9.1 directly against a datadir from 8.3; that's why I
> suggested the latest 8.3 point release.
>
> However, your startup should be failing with a message telling you this, not
> with a permissions error then (more importantly) a crash.
>

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
When I said that I reproduced the error in 9.1 version, I mean that I
created the PGDATA with 9.1 postgresql server as 'local system' user
and after that I tried to start the postgresql server as 'pss-svc'
user and I took the error message which I sent with my previous mail.
So there isn't any incompatibility problem with PGDATA.

> Is there any antivirus software on this computer? If so, what is it? Does
> excluding the PostgreSQL data directory, PostgreSQL executable directory,
> and (if the AV supports it) adding process exclusions for "postmaster.exe"
> and "postgres.exe" have any effect?
>

There isn't any antivirus software on my computer.

>> The 'pss-svc' user is member of the administrators group and has full
>> permissions for PostgreSQL data directory.
>
> It clearly doesn't, because PostgreSQL is getting "permission denied" from
> the OS when accessing global/pg_control. Maybe you need to apply permissions
> recursively?

As 'pss-svc' user I can open, read and write to the pg_control file (
I took backup of this file first ).
I have exactly the same problem when I try to start progresql server
as Administrator instead of 'pss-svc' user

>
> Remember that on Win7, membership of the Administrators group doesn't grant
> the ability to perform file operations as administrator directly. It grants
> the ability to create privileged processes that can then perform those
> operations using implicit or explicit "run as administrator" functionality.
>
> I can't off the top of my head think of a safe way on Windows to test if a
> file is writable as a given user without potentially changing its contents.
> On Linux I'd say "run touch /path/name" but there's no touch command on
> Windows. global\pg_control is a binary file so you can't just open it and
> save it in notepad (DO NOT DO THIS) as it'll corrupt it hopelessly, and
> Windows doesn't come with a binary-safe editor.
>
>> I reproduced the crash with PostgreSQL version 9.1.4.12152 with the
>> following output :
>
> [snip]
>
>> LOCATION: _dosmaperr, .\src\port\win32error.c:186
>> PANIC: 42501: could not open control file "global/pg_control":
>> Permission denied
>> LOCATION: ReadControlFile, .\src\backend\access\transam\xlog.c:4687
>>
>> This application has requested the Runtime to terminate it in an unusual
>> way.
>> Please contact the application's support team for more information.
>> ******************************************************************
>
>
> OK, that's not very nice behaviour - it should be doing a clean exit after
> it fails to read global/pg_control . Hmm. I'm not sure off the top of my
> head how to tackle tracking that down without a debugger. I don't really
> have time at the moment to set up a test environment under Windows and see
> if I can reproduce it.
>
> Ideas anyone? Can someone with a Windows box use pg_ctl to try to start a
> new Pg instance against a datadir with an unwritable pg_control ?
>
> --
> Craig Ringer