Postgres Pro
Downloads
Home   >   mailing lists

Thread: "pg_ctl: cannot be run as root"

"pg_ctl: cannot be run as root"

From
Stefan Schwarzer
Date:
Hi there,

I installed postgres without creating another postres user/admin than
myself, as there is no other user on my machine and it's only for
testing purposes.

But strange enough, I only can start the postgres server from time to
time, normally when I have freshly restarted the machine. Now for
example, I did some changes to the postgresql.conf file, and when
trying to restart the postgres server, I get this:


gridmac7:~ schwarzer$ sudo /opt/local/lib/postgresql82/bin/pg_ctl -D
Documents/data_postgres -l logfile start
pg_ctl: cannot be run as root
Please log in (using, e.g., "su") as the (unprivileged) user that will
own the server process.


What is this? Thanks for any advice,

Stefan

PS: Running Leopard on MacPro.
Attachment

Re: "pg_ctl: cannot be run as root"

From
Thomas Pundt
Date:
Hi,

On Montag, 4. Februar 2008, Stefan Schwarzer wrote:
| I installed postgres without creating another postres user/admin than
| myself, as there is no other user on my machine and it's only for
| testing purposes.
|
| But strange enough, I only can start the postgres server from time to
| time, normally when I have freshly restarted the machine. Now for
| example, I did some changes to the postgresql.conf file, and when
| trying to restart the postgres server, I get this:
|
| gridmac7:~ schwarzer$ sudo /opt/local/lib/postgresql82/bin/pg_ctl -D
| Documents/data_postgres -l logfile start
| pg_ctl: cannot be run as root
| Please log in (using, e.g., "su") as the (unprivileged) user that will
| own the server process.
|
|
| What is this? Thanks for any advice,

PostgreSQL cannot be run as user root (that's what sudo is for). If you don't
have a seperate account for PostgreSQL, run it under your account (ie without
the "sudo").

Ciao,
Thomas

--
Thomas Pundt <thomas.pundt@rp-online.de> ---- http://rp-online.de/ ----

Re: "pg_ctl: cannot be run as root"

From
"Andrej Ricnik-Bay"
Date:
On 05/02/2008, Stefan Schwarzer <stefan.schwarzer@grid.unep.ch> wrote:
> But strange enough, I only can start the postgres server from time to
> time, normally when I have freshly restarted the machine. Now for
> example, I did some changes to the postgresql.conf file, and when
> trying to restart the postgres server, I get this:
...
> PS: Running Leopard on MacPro.
I don't know MacOS very well, and it's been a while that I last
had my hands on MacOS X (>2 years).  Are you saying that
you use MacOS as user root by default, rather than as a non
privileged account?


Cheers,
Andrej


--
Please don't top post, and don't use HTML e-Mail :}  Make your quotes concise.

http://www.american.edu/econ/notes/htmlmail.htm

Re: "pg_ctl: cannot be run as root"

From
Tom Lane
Date:
"Andrej Ricnik-Bay" <andrej.groups@gmail.com> writes:
> I don't know MacOS very well, and it's been a while that I last
> had my hands on MacOS X (>2 years).  Are you saying that
> you use MacOS as user root by default, rather than as a non
> privileged account?

Certainly not.  The problem was the "sudo" in the OP's command.

            regards, tom lane