From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "Plugge, Joe R." <JRPlugge@west.com>
cc: "pgsql-admin@postgresql.org" <pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Installing Postgres without the postgres user and group on Linux?
In-reply-to: 
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References: 
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Comments: In-reply-to "Plugge, Joe R." <JRPlugge@west.com>
	message dated "Wed, 23 Jan 2013 08:41:48 -0600"
Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:28:36 -0500
Message-ID: <20631.1358958516@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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Sender: pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org

"Plugge, Joe R." <JRPlugge@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 user&group.  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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