Deleted user 'postgres' - oops - postgresql

I accidentally deleted the user 'postgres' user the #userdel command and no longer have access to the database.
What can I do to create a new postgres user and how can I start postgresql again?
If I have to re-install postgresql, do I just delete my current postgres setup by removing the /usr/local/postgresql-8.3.6/ directory?
NOTE: I have no idea how to start postgresql. I basically downloaded a gzip file and unloaded it into a directory /usr/local/postgresql-8.3.6

Recreate the user - there's nothing special about it. Except it has no password ("!" in the password field in "/etc/shadow"), but that's normal for service accounts.
And you need this system account only for running the service.
If you have downloaded the source ("I basically downloaded a gzip file...") then you need to follow the installation instructions here to make a working installation out of it.
Easier would be to install the provided pre-packaged version of Postgres from Debian:
apt-get install postgresql-8.3 postgresql-contrib-8.3

Related

How to start postgres service as a different user(myown) instead postgres user

I have installed postgres 9.5 in my linux(16.04) machine.I have started service using below command.
sudo service postgresql start
This will start postgres service as a postgres user.
But I want to run postgres a different user(myown user).
How can I do .Please help !!.
You have to recursively change the ownership of the database directory to the new user.
If the WAL directory or tablespaces are outside the data directory, you have to change their ownership too.
Then you will have to configure the startup script so that it starts PostgreSQL as the new user. Watch out: if you installed the startup script with an installation package, any changes to it will probably be lost after an update.
I recommend that you don't do all that and continue running PostgreSQL as postgres.

Failed to load sql modules into the database cluster during PostgreSQL Installation

I have attempted to install PostgreSQL 9.4 and 8.4 multiple times and it is failing no matter what I have tried. I am attempting to install on Windows 7 SP1 x64. After each failed install I have uninstalled and deleted the installation folder to start fresh.
Each time I attempt the install I get an error pop up near the end of installation that says:
"failed to load sql modules into the database cluster".
Then another error pop up displays immediately after that says:
"Error running post install step. Installation may not complete correctly. Error reading C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/9.4/postgresql.conf"
I have attempted installation with the following actions:
Always installed as administrator
Turned off all virus protection and windows firewall
Changed the installation directory to something other than the Program Files directory.
Changed the data directory to something other than the installation directory of postgres
None of the actions above have helped and I always receive the error. Any help that someone can provide would be greatly appreciated!
Encountered a very similar problem that OP is reporting today while installing Postgres 9.4.
It turns out that the password generator I was using has made a password that contains non-alphanumeric characters. ("^") I believe was the culprit in this case. Removing that allowed the installation of Postgres 9.4 (Windows 64 bit) to complete.
Very easy fix once you've found it, but the error message that comes up is not descriptive, so in this case I didn't notice at first what I was doing wrong.
I was getting this same error when trying to install PostgreSQL v9.4.4 on Windows 10 Pro. Starting with a solution hosted on Stack Exchange, I came up with the following steps that allowed the installer to run successfully:
1) Create a new user account, called postgres
2) Add the new account to the Administrators and Power Users groups
3) Restart the computer
NOTE: I added step #3, since step #4 didn't work without it
4) Run a command prompt as the postgres user, using the command:
runas /user:postgres cmd.exe
5) Run the installer from the postgres command window
6) Delete the postgres user account, as well as the user directory
NOTE: I added step #6, since the postgres account is not required after installation
What worked for me is, during the install, specifying a Postgre SQL data folder that's outside of any Windows user profile directory (C:\Users), such as C:\postgres-data.
My setup:
Win 10 Pro
PostgreSQL 9.5 RC1
I ran into this issue when I tried setting PostgreSQL's data directory somewhere under my user profile's directory, such us somewhere under "My Documents".
I tried Jeff G's solution and it didn't work at first. It worked only when I kept the data directory as the default (C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.5\data). So then I tested further and tried setting the data directory to somewhere outside of any user profile directories (i.e. somewhere that isn't under C:\Users). For example, C:\postgres-data and this worked.
I then just tried using that directory with my default user, and not bothering with the postgres temp user as outlined in Jeff G's solution and that also worked. So in the end, it had to do with my data directory being somewhere under C:\Users. As long as it was outside of that, it worked.
None of these answers here helped me, finally I solved this problem by creating the folder before the installation (C:\PostgreSQL\data) and giving it full access for the group "Users".
Windows 7 x64, postgresql-9.5.2-1-windows-x64
Hope It's Work.
1.)Uninstall PostgreSQL
2.)Delete the postgres user if it still exists :
net user postgres /delete
3.) Create the postgres user with a password you can remember:
net user /add postgres
4.) Add the postgres user to the Administrators group:
net localgroup administrators postgres /add
5.) Add the postgres user to the Power Users group
net localgroup "power users" postgres /add
6.) Run a command window as the postgres user:
runas /user:postgres cmd.exe
7.) Change user postgres and install postgresql
8.)Back your and remove the postgres user from the Administrators group.
net localgroup administrators postgres /delete
I had the same error ("Failed to load SQL modules into the database cluster.") when installing on W2K12R2 using the EnterpriseDB installer linked to from the PostgreSQL Windows download page. I tried running the installer with admin privs, and using the postgres-user solution offered by Jeff G, but neither worked. Finally I tried the second installer, BigSQL, and that installed without issue.
When installing PostgreSQL, do not use the following symbols in your database's admin password: %, <, and >.
Bug report and problem solution here
Changed the data directory to something other than the installation directory of postgres
Make sure NETWORK SERVICE has read/write permissions on that folder, the installation was failing for me until I did this.
I had this issue too with 9.5 and got around it by:
Installing with the default data folder.
Making sure my new data folder had full control access for the "NETWORK SERVICE" account.
Then changing the default PGDATA folder as per this instruction: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Change_the_default_PGDATA_directory_on_Windows
I had the same problem, and noticed that some Postgres .bat files were opening in a text editor. Text editors opening files during installation isn't too uncommon, but I noticed these batch files were setting directory permissions. I then found that .bat files were set to open in a text editor (Notepad++) by default. I changed the default program for .bat files, uninstalled Postgres, re-ran the installer, and it worked perfectly. Hope this helps.
I had the same problem before. I solved this by installing Visual Studio C++ Express first.
I had the same experience as #gomisha. #Jeff G's solution did not work for me no matter which user ran the installer.
As long as the target data directory was anywhere under c:\users, the install or database cluster init would fail.
I was successful after creating c:\postgresql-data and ensuring that the postgres user had full access in the 'effective access' tool.
Note: I did not use control userpasswords2 to set up the postgres user; I did it through the traditional crappy Windows 10 user wizard that tries to make the user sign up for hotmail. I did run the install as postgres.
I was getting this issue with the BigSQL windows installer PostgreSQL-9.6.5-1-win64-bigsql.exe
The problem turned out to be that my system path was too long. After removing some uncessary junk from my System Path, and then reinstalling, the problem was gone.
One of the answers here is the only thing that worked on my machine:
I had the same error message when trying to install 9.2.4. My issue
was because even though the Win2k8 server had %SYSTEMROOT%\system32 as
part of the path, no programs could "see" anything in
C:\Windows\system32. The installer heavily uses icacls.exe during the
init routine. Since my path was screwed up, the installer bombed out.
Once I explicitly added C:\Windows\system32 to the SYSTEM's Path
environment variable and re-ran the installer as an admin, everything
worked fine.
Credits to the user.
Go to services.msc
Search for postgres service
Go to Log On tab
Select local account
Profit
The alternative solution for problems with PostgreSQL installer is setting this up with a Docker.
Install Docker Desktop
https://www.docker.com/products/docker-desktop/
Start installed Docker Desktop
In PowerShell, run:
docker pull postgres
In PowerShell, run:
docker run -d -p 5432:5432 --name postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mypassword postgres
Now you can connect to the Postgres server for example with pgAdmin on the same machine, using:
host: localhost
port: 5432
maintenance database: postgres
username: postgres
password: mypassword
I think this would be better as individual comments above, but I don't have the required rep. I just spent days on this, with Postgres 10 on Win 10 Creators. My "answer" was to let Postgres put the data in its default install folder instead of my User folder (where it would be automatically backed-up).
1. This problem can happen with no reported install errors at all. On my very first try, I saw:
Failed to load SQL modules into the database cluster.
But that seemed to be due to:
Executing C:\Users\loren\AppData\Local\Temp\postgresql_installer_aee8e5a76f\vcredist_x64.exe /passive /norestart
Script exit code: 3010
MSI (s) (AC:FC) [14:21:35:341]: Product: Microsoft Visual C++ 2013 x86 Minimum Runtime - 12.0.40660.
Restart required. The installation or update for the product required a restart for all changes to take effect.
The restart was deferred to a later time.
Restarting Windows after the failure of the rest of the Postgres installation did not let Postgres run.
Once VC was in place, uninstalling and re-installing Postgres (still with its data in my User folder) completed with no reported errors. But every attempt to access it, by any means, still resulted in something like this:
C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\bin>psql
psql: could not connect to server: Connection refused (0x0000274D/10061)
Is the server running on host "localhost" (::1) and accepting
TCP/IP connections on port 5432?
could not connect to server: Connection refused (0x0000274D/10061)
Is the server running on host "localhost" (127.0.0.1) and accepting
TCP/IP connections on port 5432?
The RawCap sniffer showed TCP SYN followed immediately by RST,ACK on localhost for both v4 and v6 for each try. Netstat did not see port 5432 in use at all. All Postgres runtime logs were totally empty. In Windows Services, I could manually start the postgresql-x64-10 service, but it immediately stopped itself, with the note that some services do that normally.
2. I tried moving the data directory via the Postgres wiki procedure. Apparently for Postgres 10 it is incomplete. It does not deal with:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PostgreSQL\Installations\postgresql-x64-10\Data Directory
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PostgreSQL\Services\postgresql-x64-10\Data Directory
C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\pg_env.bat
C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\10\scripts\serverctl.vbs
But fixing every data file instance I could find did not let it run. And even after fixing all those, and uninstalling and re-installing again with the default location, the new pgAdmin4 somehow still remembered my original User data directory location!
3. I did not try giving NETWORK SERVICE read/write permissions on my User folder. Once the default install worked I wanted to get on with my original project... Maybe that would have worked.

Remove all postgresql users/completely delete

As I attempt to create my initial user account on postgresql, I am prompted for my password, though when I enter the correct one I recieve:
createdb: could not connect to database template1: FATAL: password authentication failed for user "thomasmurphy"
I am installing through brew. My thought is that somewhere along the line I've set a password different from my system one. How do I remove all users so I can reset this pass.
I get my permission denied even if I su to postgres. I have gone through every thread on stackoverflow on this issue, and have tried:
*modifying my pg hba_conf
*updating my gems and developer tools
*running brew doctor
*reinstalling postgres
*all the other command line ideas through the thread
My situation seems to not have cropped up before, which convinces me I've set a password at some point that is now tripping all of my attempts. Adding to this theory is that I have a postgres setup on my work computer, also on mavericks, function perfectly.
Note that unless you changed defaults, homebrew installs Postgres with you as the superuser rather than as the postgres user. The issue might be that you're trying to use postgres "as normal" whereas it doesn't need or event want the usual postgres user references.
You see the list of users on the system using cat /etc/passwd, and you can change an arbitrary password by running chpass as root.

No postgresql user created after new Windows install

I'm trying to use postgresql with Rails so I can run locally before deploying to Heroku. I installed the latest version of postgresql (9.2.4) from enterprisedb.com.
When I try to double click the database in pgAdmin III, it asks for a postgresql password. There is no Windows postgresql account in the user settings. I did notice that during my subsequent uninstallation of the application, the uninstaller referenced a service user account "NetworkService."
If I try to run the command line psql command, it asks for a password, then it complains that authentication failed for (my windows login account name). I tried entering my usual Windows account password, and that didn't work.
What's going wrong here? I've read many posts of people running into password/account issues with this database.
There is no Windows postgresql account in the user settings.
The installer for 9.2 doesn't create a postgres Windows user account. People were having too many problems with the service account password, getting confused between the service account and the postgres database account, etc. It now installs and runs as NETWORKSERVICE by default.
You will have set a PostgreSQL database password when you installed. You must log in to PostgreSQL as the postgres user with the password you gave during installation.
With the help of bma, I was able to get my Rails application running on Windows by following these steps:
Install postgresql for Windows.
Open the pgAdmin III application from the Windows Start Menu.
Click on the File menu, click Open pg_hba.conf
Browse to C:\Program Files (x86)\PostgreSQL\9.2\data\pg_hba.conf.
Double click each of the rows and change md5 to trust

How to create a postgresql superuser without a superuser account?

OK...just installed Mountain Lion. First thing I noticed was that my Postgres user account was missing from the login screen. I then verified that my postgres installation was no longer working. So I created a new postgres user account on my Mac and set all the proper permission to get the postgres server to start. It started but immediately the server shutdown. I checked the log files and it said that role "postgres" does not exist.
I can't figure out how to create this user in the db since the db won't allow me to access it without using a superuser account. I tried "createuser postgres" but got the same message, "role 'postgres' does not exist". I don't know what to do at this point.
Found my problem. Somehow my postgres db user did get erased during the upgrade to mountain lion. I was able to log into the db using the same name that I use to log into the system however. Unfortunately, I found that my databases where also removed during the upgrade. I don't know why but the upgrade did effect my postgresql installation. After logging in, I found that the postgres db and the template1 db had no relations to be found. Now to piece my db back together...luckily I'm still in development mode. Note: In the future make db backups prior to upgrading system.