Sender: mo@peculiarweb.com
Message-ID: <360113DD.4514CF1@midwestonline.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 08:51:25 -0500
From: Midwest Online <mo@midwestonline.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: pgsql-interfaces@postgreSQL.org
Subject: Re: [INTERFACES] getting "fe_setauthsvc: invalid name" error
References: <5019.905956199@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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Tom Lane wrote:
> 
> Ah, but Clint's real problem is that he's not calling libpq directly,
> but via libpq++.  And as far as I can see, libpq++ doesn't have any way
> to open a connection except by calling plain old PQsetdb.  This needs to
> be fixed.  (We should add an entry point to libpq++ that corresponds to
> PQconnectdb, so that the connection parameters are passed through as a
> single string and libpq++ doesn't have to know about each and every one
> of 'em.)
> 
> The short-term workaround is what you mention next:
> 
> > It's so easy... If you should want to set environment variables anyway:
> > environ(5), getenv(3) and putenv(3) tell you how.
> 
> Setting PGUSER (and PGPASSWORD if needed) env. variables will provide a
> way to pass these items to libpq despite the lack of any cooperation
> from libpq++.

Bingo!  Tom, what you said about PGUSER triggered something I was
wondering about: if running as a virtual web server was different (and
how) from running at the command line.  Here's the fix I used:

I used some C code from the examples directory to make the same
connection through the web server.  I still wasn't getting connected,
but at least the error message in the server's log was informative: it
said it failed during a call to getprotobyname().  I had no clue what it
was, but looked it up.  It says that it reads /etc/protocols.  I somehow
"knew" that /etc/protocols didn't exist while running through the web
server; our hosting company had mentioned before that the file
permissions, etc. are different - more protected - from httpd.  So, the
easy fix was to copy /etc/protocols to ~/etc/protocols (a directory
"readable" from our virtual server's httpd process.  It worked like a
charm. :)
I have no clue if it's a "legitimate" fix, or if any harm can be done,
but for now it's staying.  :)

Thanks go out to Tom Lane and everybody that offered help!

Clint
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