> On 10/03/2023 19:06 CET Holger Jakobs <holger@jakobs.com> wrote:
>
> What is a bit problematic running PostgreSQL on Windows is that the
> installer by EDB doesn't create a new system user 'postgres' like
> ususally is done by the package systems on Linux systems making this
> system user the owner all directories and files of the database clusters
> with exclusive permissions.
Yeah, that also bugs me because I have to manage the password for the initial
superuser.
> Instead, the postgres.exe processes are run as an 'NT service', which is
> also used by a lot of non-postgres processes. These processes have the
> same permissions on Postgres' files as the Postgres processes.
>
> When I set up a lot of PostgreSQL servers on Windows machines a couple
> of years ago, I had a script create a special user for the database
> system and also made this special user the owner of all files and
> directories of the clusters.
Thanks for the tip.
> I am afraid that some non-postgres process might have meddled with the
> Postgres cluster causing trouble.
My guess is Symantec Endpoint Protection because in the past it detected the
EnterpriseDB installer and PostGIS installer as false-positive around 50% of
the time. Seems plausible that it detected pg_ctl.exe after I updated to 14.7.
> Maybe you can check ownership and permissions of the respective files.
> Unfortunately, the permissions system on Windows is far more complex
> than the one on Linux with just user owner, group owner and the
> permissions r, w and x.
* Owner of c:/program files/postgresql/{12,14} is group "Administrators" which
has a couple of users. Also owns everything under bin/.
* User "NETWORK SERVICE" is owner of most of the files under data/ with some
files owned by the user who installed Postgres (myself in case of pg14, some
other user in case of pg12).
--
Erik
