Re: Portability (was Re: [HACKERS] Development installation fails)

On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Tom Lane wrote:

> Peter Eisentraut <peter_e(at)gmx(dot)net> writes:
> > One potential goal (which I personally share) of simplifying the
> > installation process would be to not have to su as postgres but do
> > everything as root or a user of your choice. Together with Vince's idea of
> > adding -o and -g options to the install command and a similar option to
> > initdb, we can do that and it would not be hard to understand from an end
> > user's point of view.
>
> Huh? The user of your choice *is* postgres, or whoever you are su'd as.
> -o and -g are useless unless you are executing the install as root,
> which really isn't necessary --- in fact I think we ought to discourage
> it to prevent people from accidentally installing the postgres files
> with root ownership. (initdb ought to refuse to run at all as root...)

Perhaps the user of choice for running PostgreSQL is postgres, but that's
not necessarily the same choice for the installing user. If you happen
to install it as postgres then the -o and -g will have no effect on you,
but if root is installing it then you want the -o and -g in there. No?
I do agree, tho, that initdb should only be able to run as the database
superuser as stated at configuration time.

Vince.
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