[ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Plugge, Joe R.
Is it possible to install and then subsequently run the postgres engine on 
Linux without creating the postgres user and group?  We have some folks 
implementing LDAP that are resistant to creating a postgres account and group 
and would rather create machine specific accounts (like one does for Windows 
with SQL Server).

I always thought that if the postgres user and group were not there upon 
install (which is done as root), that the installation process would create 
them for you, am I missing something?

Thanks for any input that will provide me with ample ammunition to thwart this 
silly idea.

Joe Plugge


Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Zdeněk Bělehrádek
 Is it possible to install and then subsequently run the postgres engine on
 Linux without creating the postgres user and group?  We have some folks
 implementing LDAP that are resistant to creating a postgres account and
 group and would rather create machine specific accounts (like one does for
 Windows with SQL Server).
 
 I always thought that if the postgres user and group were not there upon
 install (which is done as root), that the installation process would create
 them for you, am I missing something?
 
 Thanks for any input that will provide me with ample ammunition to thwart
 this silly idea.
 
 Joe Plugge

Is there any problem with configuring postgres user and group in /etc/passwd 
and /etc/group respectively? You can configure PAM to accept user 
authentication from multiple sources. See e. g. http://ldots.org/ldap/

-- Zdeněk Bělehrádek


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Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Tom Lane
Plugge, Joe R. jrplu...@west.com writes:
 Is it possible to install and then subsequently run the postgres engine on 
 Linux without creating the postgres user and group?  We have some folks 
 implementing LDAP that are resistant to creating a postgres account and group 
 and would rather create machine specific accounts (like one does for Windows 
 with SQL Server).

The server source code has no particular allegiance to any OS username.
You can run it under whatever account you want.

 I always thought that if the postgres user and group were not there upon 
 install (which is done as root), that the installation process would create 
 them for you, am I missing something?

Particular packagings of Postgres might act like that --- for instance,
the Fedora/Red Hat RPMs would try to create such a usergroup.  But you
did not say whose packaging you were thinking of using.  In any case
you could run the executables under some other user ID if you then
adjusted file ownerships and startup scripts appropriately.

regards, tom lane


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Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Plugge, Joe R.
Understood, but I thought that the install routine (in this case compiled from 
source on RHEL 6) will create the local user and group named postgres and chown 
the config and data dirs to that 

PGDATA=/var/postgresql/log/data

-rw--- 1 postgres postgres 4 Jan  7 15:18 PG_VERSION
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan  7 15:18 pg_twophase
drwx-- 4 postgres postgres  4096 Jan  7 15:18 pg_multixact
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres  1631 Jan  7 15:18 pg_ident.conf
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres 16908 Jan  7 15:18 orig_postgresql.conf
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres  3652 Jan  7 15:18 orig_pg_hba.conf
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres 17929 Jan  7 15:21 postgresql.conf
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres  4160 Jan  7 15:21 pg_hba.conf
drwx-- 6 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 11 17:19 base
-rw--- 1 postgres postgres37 Jan 16 12:16 postmaster.opts
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 17 11:37 pg_clog
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 17 11:46 pg_subtrans
drwx-- 3 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 17 11:47 pg_xlog
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 17 11:47 pg_tblspc
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 18 10:51 pg_stat_tmp
drwx-- 2 postgres postgres  4096 Jan 18 10:51 global

-Original Message-
From: Tom Lane [mailto:t...@sss.pgh.pa.us] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 10:29 AM
To: Plugge, Joe R.
Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on 
Linux?

Plugge, Joe R. jrplu...@west.com writes:
 Is it possible to install and then subsequently run the postgres engine on 
 Linux without creating the postgres user and group?  We have some folks 
 implementing LDAP that are resistant to creating a postgres account and group 
 and would rather create machine specific accounts (like one does for Windows 
 with SQL Server).

The server source code has no particular allegiance to any OS username.
You can run it under whatever account you want.

 I always thought that if the postgres user and group were not there upon 
 install (which is done as root), that the installation process would create 
 them for you, am I missing something?

Particular packagings of Postgres might act like that --- for instance, the 
Fedora/Red Hat RPMs would try to create such a usergroup.  But you did not say 
whose packaging you were thinking of using.  In any case you could run the 
executables under some other user ID if you then adjusted file ownerships and 
startup scripts appropriately.

regards, tom lane


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Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Tom Lane
Plugge, Joe R. jrplu...@west.com writes:
 Understood, but I thought that the install routine (in this case compiled 
 from source on RHEL 6) will create the local user and group named postgres 
 and chown the config and data dirs to that 

The unmodified Postgres sources will certainly do no such thing.

regards, tom lane


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Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?

2013-01-23 Thread Plugge, Joe R.
You are correct, it is because I ran initdb as user postgres  I am 
following you now .. .thanks for the clarification.


-Original Message-
From: Tom Lane [mailto:t...@sss.pgh.pa.us] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 11:04 AM
To: Plugge, Joe R.
Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on 
Linux?

Plugge, Joe R. jrplu...@west.com writes:
 Understood, but I thought that the install routine (in this case compiled 
 from source on RHEL 6) will create the local user and group named postgres 
 and chown the config and data dirs to that 

The unmodified Postgres sources will certainly do no such thing.

regards, tom lane


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